Take your computing lessons outside for Outdoor Classroom Day 2024
When we think of computing, we often imagine pupils sitting at laptops completing on-screen activities. However, this doesn’t have to be the case. Outdoor Classroom Day on 7 November 2024 is the perfect opportunity to take your computing lessons outside and use the great outdoors as your classroom!
Why outdoor learning matters
Outdoor learning isn’t just a fun break from the traditional classroom; it’s a powerful tool that can support pupils’ educational experience. Studies have shown that taking part in regular outdoor learning leads to improved academic performance, better social skills, and improved well-being. Taking computing outdoors can also showcase the diversity of the subject and tackle the misconceptions students around it being solely screen-based, helping drive engagement and break down unhelpful stereotypes surrounding the subject.
How you can take computing outdoors in key stage 1
Go on a minibeast hunt and create a pictogram
Supported by resources from Year 2 Pictograms (Lesson 3), why not take pupils on a minibeast hunt round your school grounds? Through this activity, you will encourage them to record their findings on a tally chart, then create a pictogram using J2Data to show their results.
Further, if your school has tablet devices, pupils can take these outside and create the pictogram as they find the minibeasts. Alongside this, they could take pictures of the minibeasts they find to prompt further discussion or complete additional grouping and sorting activities.
Practice your computational thinking skills
Computational thinking is key to understanding the wider computing curriculum and helps develop problem-solving and logical thinking skills. Unplugged (device-free) computing activities can support computational thinking, and the outdoors provides many opportunities for these. Encourage pupils to gather autumn leaves from around your school grounds and use them to teach pattern recognition. Encourage pupils to group the the leaves in different ways (colour, shape, size) and explain their reasoning.
Another idea is to work in pairs to create a simple repeating sequence with natural objects they find around the school grounds. One pupil starts the sequence (e.g. big leaf, stick, small leaf) and when the other pupil recognises the pattern, they complete the next part. A variation of this activity could be used to teach the need for precise instructions in algorithms. Sitting back-to-back, one pupil can create a short sequence of items and describe it to their partner. Their partner creates a sequence from these instructions. If their instructions were precise, both pupils should have a similar sequence.
How you can take computing outdoors in key stage 2
Use data loggers answer questions about your outdoor space
Which area of your playground is warmest? Which area of your school grounds is brightest? How much louder (or quieter) is the key stage 1 playground at lunchtime than the key stage 2 playground?
These are all questions that computing can help you answer with the use of a data logger. Using resources from the Year 4 Data Logging unit, available through the Teach each Computing Curriculum, you’ll be able to support pupils to plan and answer a question about your school’s outdoor space.
Outdoor algorithms
There are many outdoor opportunities to reinforce the need for precision when writing algorithms, and for debugging. Set up a simple obstacle course and encourage pupils to write precise instructions for their partner on how to complete it (e.g. 3 steps forward, turn 90 degrees right, two steps forward, one step into the hoop). If the instructions do not allow their partner to complete the obstacle course, they should debug them and try again. By using the language of algorithms and debugging throughout, this activity provides concrete examples of computing concepts.
Get to know your school playground
Try out some of the activities from micro:bit’s playground survey. While it might be too late to submit your results, but the activities still offer an exciting opportunity to take computing outside and get pupils hands-on with physical computing. From investigating the biodiversity of your school’s playground, to measuring its area and even tracking physical activity, the micro:bit playground survey has something for every school.
Many of these activities will also help you progress towards your Teach Primary Computing certificate. If you adapted a Teach Computing Curriculum unit for outdoor learning or incorporated one of our enrichment activities into your lessons, be sure to log it on your dashboard!