{"id":832,"date":"2019-07-15T11:00:19","date_gmt":"2019-07-15T11:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.syngli.com\/blog\/?p=832"},"modified":"2025-05-22T02:25:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-22T02:25:11","slug":"outdoor-education-valuable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.syngli.com\/blog\/outdoor-education-valuable\/","title":{"rendered":"Outdoor education and Ontario&#8217;s education cutbacks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Outdoor education is a term used to describe a broad range of activities that may encompass concepts and ideas learned in the classroom. Due to severe budget constraints, major cutbacks have been made to Ontario\u2019s educational sector, noticeably to outdoor education programs. Some programs that have been terminated include multi-credit high school integrated programs in Halton, Bluewater, Trillium Lakelands and Simcoe District School boards, as well as four of the ten existing outdoor education centres run by the Toronto District School Board (TDSB). While the news of these program terminations is quite unfortunate, it is even more disappointing to hear that there could be additional reductions.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.syngli.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/arthur-tseng-rWLyPPEo4M0-unsplash.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"700\" height=\"467\" data-id=\"1755\" src=\"https:\/\/www.syngli.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/arthur-tseng-rWLyPPEo4M0-unsplash-700x467.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1755\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.syngli.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/arthur-tseng-rWLyPPEo4M0-unsplash-700x467.jpg 700w, https:\/\/www.syngli.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/arthur-tseng-rWLyPPEo4M0-unsplash-250x167.jpg 250w, https:\/\/www.syngli.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/arthur-tseng-rWLyPPEo4M0-unsplash-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.syngli.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/arthur-tseng-rWLyPPEo4M0-unsplash-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.syngli.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/arthur-tseng-rWLyPPEo4M0-unsplash-120x80.jpg 120w, https:\/\/www.syngli.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/arthur-tseng-rWLyPPEo4M0-unsplash.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Photo by <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/@arthur3607?utm_content=creditCopyText&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=unsplash\">Arthur Tseng<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/photos\/a-couple-of-kids-that-are-sitting-in-the-grass-rWLyPPEo4M0?utm_content=creditCopyText&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=unsplash\">Unsplash<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Outdoor experiential education (OEE) has been an effective learning approach for many years. Some examples of OEE excursions include neighbourhood walks, field trips to selected centres as well as programs including co-operative education and specialist high skills majors. As Liz Kirk\u2019s<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thestar.com\/opinion\/contributors\/2019\/07\/15\/the-value-of-outdoor-education.html\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">article<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> mentions, outdoor experiential education does not <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">mean time<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> away from school. It is rather a way to enhance student learning by providing opportunities to make connections between in-class material and reality.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2018, The Council of Outdoor Educators of Ontario compiled a summary of benefits of outdoor education. Some of the reasons why OEE should be supported include the following:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">OEE follows the school curriculum \u2013 Students that participate in these excursions are able to broaden and deepen their learning. As a result, they may become more engaged and enthusiastic about different topics, as well as improve their language proficiency, critical thinking and STEM skills.<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Character is developed \u2013 Due to the highly interactive nature of these programs, significant development of both personal and interpersonal growth is able to occur. Some characteristics that can be further developed include creativity, self-motivation, assertiveness and<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> resilience.<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Social skills are developed \u2013 While engaging in OEE, working with other classmates can promote co-operation, effective communication, decision making and problem<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> solving.<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Physical and mental well-being is improved \u2013 Research has proven that an increased amount of time spent outdoors can reduce feelings of anxiety and better one\u2019s ability to handle difficult<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> situations.<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Recognition of the environment \u2013 OEE allows students to recognize how important our natural surroundings <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">are.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Outdoor education is a term used to describe a broad range of activities that may encompass concepts and ideas learned in the classroom. Due to severe budget constraints, major cutbacks have been made to Ontario\u2019s educational sector, noticeably to outdoor education programs. Some programs that have been terminated include multi-credit high school integrated programs in&#8230; <a class=\"view-article\" href=\"https:\/\/www.syngli.com\/blog\/outdoor-education-valuable\/\">View Article<\/a>","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":1755,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[14,70,15,72,66],"class_list":["post-832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-canada","tag-learning","tag-ontario","tag-outdoor-education","tag-school"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Outdoor education and Ontario&#039;s education cutbacks - Syngli - Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.syngli.com\/blog\/outdoor-education-valuable\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Outdoor education and Ontario&#039;s education cutbacks - Syngli - Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Outdoor education is a term used to describe a broad range of activities that may encompass concepts and ideas learned in the classroom. Due to severe budget constraints, major cutbacks have been made to Ontario\u2019s educational sector, noticeably to outdoor education programs. Some programs that have been terminated include multi-credit high school integrated programs in... 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