(Read Part One here.)

(Read Part Two here.)

Note: Most of the activities below can be found in the Project WET Curriculum and Activity Guide 2.0, which is available through your local Coordinator. However, some are from other educator guides for sale on the Project WET store in hard copy or download. Activities that can be purchased are linked in the text.

Learning outdoors benefits students and educators, which is why we want to help educators get out! Here's the final set of Project WET's best outdoor activities, as chosen by Project WET USA Coordinators and Project WET Foundation staff:

Project WET's early childhood education guide contains several options to take young learners outside Living Water (Getting Little Feet Wet)

Project WET’s VP of Networks Julia Beck nominated the early childhood education activity Living Water from Getting Little Feet Wet, which has children go outside and look at examples of thing that are living and non-living and talk about water being in all living things. Then children can do a leaf or flower pounding to see the water inside a plant. “It’s a great way to get kids thinking about nature and understanding water is life,” Julia says. Michelle Darnell of Texas says she uses Our Blue Planet from Getting Little Feet Wet for her younger learners as well.

Healthy Habits/Surface Sanitation Solutions

Both Project WET International Projects Manager Allison Howe and Maryland’s Cindy Etgen nominated the Guide 2.0 activity Healthy Habits, a tag game about germ transmission that was adapted for the Clean and Conserve Educators Guide as Surface Sanitation Solutions. Cindy explains that it is much easier (and much more fun) to take Part II Healthy Habits outside, “especially when trying to explain population density and how germs move more quickly through a denser population than one that is more spread out.” Allison says of Surface Sanitation Solutions that in addition to being useful for teaching about science, “it could be a fun activity for a health/PE class, too”.

Whole-body movement and other engaging teaching methods are critical for retention and comprehension Life in the Fast Lane

Project WET VP of Projects and Programs Morgan Close went into the archives to nominate the Guide 1.0 activity Life in the Fast Lane. She describes the activity as “a scavenger hunt through temporary wetlands”. The activity teaches the benefits of and challenges to organisms living in temporary wetlands.

Didn’t see your favorite Project WET outdoor learning activity? Email us with your nominations. If you have questions about how best to bring the outdoors to your students, feel free to contact your local Coordinator or Project WET staff.