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Environment as an Integrating Context for Learning

Background

In coordination with our sponsor, Audubon Center of the North Woods, Environment as an Integrating Context for learning (EIC) will be the framework for Great Expectations School's (GES) learning program and curriculum selection. Our sponsor has been a leader in EIC, teaching visiting students within the EIC framework and educating teachers how to incorporate EIC in the classroom/have true EIC schools.

State Education and Environment Roundtable (SEER), the the Department of Children, Families and Learning (DCFL), and Audubon Center of the North Woods (ACNW) are working together to develop a network of EIC schools.

In cooperation with SEER, the DCFL initiated a network of Minnesota EIC schools beginning with its first cohort of teachers in 1999. A second cohort was added in 2000, bringing the total number of schools in the network to 12. In 2002, an additional 10 schools are joining the Minnesota network, this time in a cooperative effort with the Audubon Center of the North Woods (ACNW). SEER conducted professional development with both cohorts and the EIC implementation specialists. A teacher on special assignment has been funded by the Minnesota Office of Environmental Assistance. This teacher works with SEER's staff to provide ongoing program implementation assistance. SEER continues to monitor the implementation process and recently field-tested a new EIC program evaluation instrument with Minnesota's EIC schools.

Benefits to our school

GES staff will look to our sponsor, ACNW, for their expertise in curriculum development. A concise description of EIC is found in the SEER report "Closing the Achievement Gap: Using the Environment as an Integrating Context for Learning."

Using Environment as an Integrating Context for learning (EIC) defines a framework for education: a framework for interdisciplinary, collaborative, student-centered, hands-on, and engaged learning. EIC-based learning is not primarily focused on learning about the environment, nor is it limited to developing environmental awareness. It is about using a school's surroundings and community as a framework within which students can construct their own learning, guided by teachers and administrators using proven educational practices. EIC programs typically employ the environment as a comprehensive focus and framework for learning in all areas: general and disciplinary knowledge; thinking and problem-solving skills, and basic life skills, such as cooperation and interpersonal communications.

What that means is that our students learn not only from books and teachers, but also from real experience and time spent studying the community in which they live.

For example, if students are studying geology, they go to Artist's Point to see the rocks that formed Lake Superior and Grand Marais. If they're studying music, perhaps a community band member helps them to understand how the saxophone works. Learning about animals may include cross-country skiing to find tracks in the woods. In other words, the talented community people of Cook County, along with the the extraordinary natural resources of the North Shore, provide a special richness and expanded classroom for our students.

The observed benefits of EIC programs are broad-ranged and encouraging. EIC benefits include:

better performance on standardized measures of academic achievement in reading, writing, math, science, and social studies;
reduced discipline and classroom management problems;
increased engagement and enthusiasm for learning; and,
greater pride and ownership in accomplishments.

Environment as the Integrating Context for learning designates pedagogy that employs natural and socio-cultural environments as the context for learning while taking into account the best practices of successful educators. EIC programs share these fundamental educational strategies. They:

break down traditional boundaries between disciplines;
provide hands-on learning experiences, often through problem-solving and project-based activities;
rely on team teaching; adapt to individual students and their unique skills and abilities;
and, develop knowledge, understanding, and appreciation for the environment-community and natural surroundings.

Using the EIC framework, students will make connections across subject areas which spark individual interests, engage them, and help them learn within a context that is personally meaningful.

Everybody learns and everybody teaches.

Education

Environment as an Integrating Context for Learning

Background

Benefits to our school