The Living Classroom

Living Classroom professional development is an interactive and exciting way to experience outdoor education and learn how to teach core subjects through nature. This professional development experience will help elementary teachers integrate environmental studies into math, science, visual arts, and English language arts through outdoor experiential learning.

Teaching outdoors: These workshops explore environmental science as a context for real-life, hands-on, interdisciplinary learning. Teachers participate in activities taken from the guide and discuss ways to use the lessons with their students, including classroom management strategies for teaching in the out-of-doors.	Field Studies: Participants also spend time out in the field with naturalists and field experts in order to learn about the local flora, fauna and ecosystems available as teaching tools. Time in the field with an expert is an exciting way to explore and define the world around the school building while learning interesting and important information about the outdoor environment.

Each workshop participant is given a copy of the Teaching in Nature: Living Landscapes curriculum guide which contains 11 outdoor lessons and include step by step procedures, reproducible worksheets, service learning tips, and a list of the Massachusetts frameworks that apply to each lesson.

Workshops can accommodate almost any schedule or location. Previous workshops have ranged in length from 3 contact hours to 9 and have taken place on and off school grounds. Please contact the Education Department of the Berkshire Museum for further information at (413) 443 7171 or e-mail us at education@berkshiremuseum.org