Persuasive Essay On Outdoor Education

Did you know that highly trafficked areas like Niagara Falls are best for solo hiking? Highly populated areas such as Niagara falls are exquisite hiking spots for novice hikers, even if someone is hiking a simple trail, it is pivotal that people are notified of the individual's whereabouts. It is crucial to communicate with family or trusted associates before you go on a hike owing to the fact that hiking alone can pose threats such as injuries, complicated weather, and dangerous wildlife.

For years, Americans have been told that exercising and staying active is imperative to maintaining a healthy lifestyle. In general, this fact holds true for all generations and age groups, including the youth of today. Children simply need to exercise and participate in more physical activities in order to maintain a high level of health. The Center for Health and Health Care in Schools suggests that, “one of the leading causes of this epidemic (childhood obesity) is a marked decline in physical activity and athletic participation” (“Athletics in Schools”). Childhood fascinations with watching television, playing video games, and browsing the internet are just a few of the sedentary hobbies taking over children’s free time to be active. Therefore, mandating physical activities in schools across the country will effectively reduce the frequency of this major, obesity health crisis in young students. Understandably, a plethora of factors cause and influence children to become overweight and obese, but working to fix each evident problem will, in the end, contribute to finally ending the developing childhood health crisis.

“The most practical and the most feasible solution offered, and the one on which this paper will center, involves the schoolyard. The schoolyard habitat movement, which promotes the “greening” of school grounds, is quickly gaining international recognition and legitimacy.” This quote touches on the fact that currently our schools need to “greened” meaning nature needs to be implemented not on the sidelines of fields but rather right in the center for kids to explore. There are many studied showing how children’s connection with nature at a young age helps them have a strong connection with nature along with having better health and lesser chances of depression. There are many organizations such as the National Wildlife Federation, Council for Environmental Education, American Forest Foundation, Britain-based Learning through Landscapes, Canadian-based Evergreen, and Swedish-based Skolans Uterum, that have all expresses interest in helping out with this cause. A theory that is very interesting that relates to this issue is a theory by Edward Wilson from Harvard. He had a theory that he named biophilia. Basically what this theory was about was that all people are simply drawn to nature by their very instinct. This quote has a lot of truth to it. Almost all

Physical activity has not only physical benefits. It also has a very big impact on social-emotional and cognitive aspects of child’s live. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “The development of a physically active lifestyle is a goal for all children. Traditional team and competitive sports may promote healthy activity for selected youth. Individual sports, noncompetitive sports, lifetime sports, and recreational activities expand the opportunity for activity to everyone. The opportunity to be active on a regular basis, as well as the enjoyment and competence gained from activity, may increase the chances that a physically active lifestyle will be adopted.”

“Outdoor education is in line with current thinking, but also echo’s the philosophy of the McMillan sisters. Practitioners today should be aware of the opportunities afforded by outdoor provision, not only in terms of developing children’s learning, but also with positive benefits to their health” (Cooper 2004)

“The physical and emotional health of an entire generation and the economic health and security of our nation is at stake” a quote made by the First Lady, Michelle Obama, as she launches her comprehensive initiative to change the way children think about nutrition and physical fitness (“Learn the Facts,” 2010). Three decades ago, children lived active lives that kept them healthier. They walked to and from school, ate home cooked, reasonable portion meals with vegetables and played outdoors most of the time. Today, children ride the bus instead of walk, eat more fast food and snacks throughout the day because parents are busier, and watch more television or play video games rather than be active outside with peers (“Learn the Facts,” 2010). Young children are becoming overweight and obese along with being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes more frequently. They are making poor dietary choices, inadequate physical activity, and spending too much screen time all contributing to the obesity crisis. One of the effective solutions to reversing the trend of childhood obesity is to provide safe, affordable and accessible after-school health and physical fitness educational programs for all school ages across the nation.

Participation in youth sports in the United States is on the rise. “Organized youth sports are highly popular for youth and their families, with approximately 45 million children and adolescent participants in the US” (Merkel, 2013). There are many benefits for children that can be attributed to sports such as: physical activity, learning motor skills, sense of belonging, stress relief, and many more. With childhood obesity on the rise recreational sports has never been needed more than it is today. “Over the past three decades, the incidence of obesity in children has tripled, with one of every three children being affected” (Merkel, 2013). Obesity has many long-term health problems related to it such as: diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure cancer, asthma. We can attribute this health problem to changes in our society over like increased technology, increased crime rates, fast food and isolated suburban neighborhoods. Sports and other physical activities are needed to keep children from causing further damaged to their future.

Physical activity also has benefits for children's social and emotional development and cognitive development. These benefits include being part of a team and making friends through group sports, which have a major impact on social and emotional development. The effect of obesity on children is closely linked to many bad health habits such as diet, smoking and drug use which in turn can affect a child's academic performance (Goran et al., 1999). Physical activity, if encouraged at a young age, can reduce the likelihood of children developing these behaviours and focus on their academic performance and cognitive development. As children in this age range are in their fundamental development stage, it is important that educators and parents alike, teach children about the importance of physical activity at a young age in order to prevent health and social well-being problems in their adult years.

Now, in modern times kids nowadays stay inside the house and eating when your grandparents were young they would go outside and play. We kids these days are distracted by electronics which your grandparents did not have to worry about because they did not have any. Going outside will help you with your health exercise and obesity if you are fat. first what happens to your body and mind when you stay in the house to long.

My central idea for this topic is for my audience to be aware that spending time outdoors is important for the body and mind and helps you relieve stress more so than having not to spend time outdoors. Spending more time outdoors can be done in many ways and it is healthy for your body.

Finding ways to keep students interested in schoolwork and increasing their cognitive abilities has been a constant struggle for teachers. It is common knowledge that when a child’s interest wanes, it becomes harder for them to learn and retain knowledge on the subject. One tool that can be used to combat this issue would be the use of an outdoor classroom or learning outdoors. During the late 60’s and 70’s outdoor education was highly recommended in curriculum guidelines to enrich educational experiences, but later declined in the 80’s (Eaton, 1998). Today, outdoor education only plays a small role in children’s education experiences, despite the benefits it could provide. Teachers should take advantage of outdoor education to increase children’s cognitive skills, provide physical and emotional benefits, and decrease the bio phobia many children seemed to have developed.

There are a whole lot of programs or curriculums out there that try to talk about the environmental and academic needs of children. In this paper, I will try my best to discuss the five components of the

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the number of obese children ages 6-19 have tripled to 16% over the last twelve years. That is an alarming figure. One of the main causes is lack of physical activity. This may seem like an obvious cause, but it seems to be the one our youth have the most problems with. Physical education is being

Grigg and Lewis (2016, p. 19) define learning outside the classroom as “children learning about people, their heritage and the natural environment, largely through play and first-hand experiences, in a wide range of contexts beyond the classroom.” Learning outside the classroom enables teachers to bring the curricula alive by integrating the school grounds and the local landscape into their teaching (Beames et al., 2012). It is important that children are given more opportunities to explore the natural world as there is no doubt that there are many benefits to outdoor learning. Furthermore, according to the Learning Outside the Classroom Manifesto:

This should be firmly implanted in a child’s mind so that he may constantly be aware that man has a special responsibility to protect Nature. Students should be made aware of their responsibility and duty towards protecting nature and prevent its wanton destruction which unfortunately seems to be order of the day. Some simple practices like encouraging planting of trees periodically in their neighbourhood, watering the plants and nurturing them, digging pits for rain water harvesting should be taught. These and other would foster in a child caring and sharing attitude towards nature and life on earth and a deep appearance of the flora and fauna.