5 Benefits of Earning College Credit in High School
by Christopher E. Nelson
Educational Outdoor Activities to Build Nature Smarts
byElizabeth Preston
3 min to read
There are multiple types of intelligences according to educational theorist, Howard Gardner. Among these are verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, and naturalistic intelligence. While perhaps not often discussed, naturalistic intelligence refers to the ability to identify and categorize animals, plants, and other entities in nature. Examples of naturalistic intelligence also include taking care of the environment and understanding the relationships between plants, animals, humans, and environments. Furthermore, naturalistic intelligence is believed to have helped our ancestors survive, evolve, and adapt to their environments.
Encouraging students to develop their naturalistic intelligence can provide opportunities for students to learn about nature, STEM fields, and practical life skills. While naturalistic intelligence can be developed during any time of the year, the world is rife with opportunities to learn more about nature, particularly during the spring and summer, so parents and Learning Coaches may use summer break to focus on naturalistic intelligence activities in order to keep students with this learning preference active and learning.
What are the Benefits of Naturalistic Intelligence?
Learning about nature encourages students to be curious about the world and to develop their observational skills. From their observations, they can use their logic to draw conclusions about the flora and fauna as well as the relationships that they have to one another and their environments. Further, they can learn how to categorize species and take field notes of what they see in nature.
Some argue that naturalistic intelligence also encourages students to develop sensory awareness, pattern recognition, and critical thinking.
Naturalistic intelligence lends itself to STEM fields such as botany, geology, meteorology, astronomy, biology, chemistry, environmental engineering, and animal science.
Naturalistic Intelligence and Environmental Conservation
Many believe that helping students develop naturalistic intelligence aids them in cultivating their empathy skills and developing an appreciation for environmental conservation since, by doing so, they explore how humans and the environment are interconnected.
Encouraging students to explore the natural world around them can also demonstrate to them what is unique to the environments they live in and help them to appreciate where they live. Further, developing naturalistic intelligence can help students to understand sustainability and get them thinking about the future and how they can make the world a better place.
Naturalistic Intelligence Activities
Some naturalistic intelligence activities include:
Exploring nature on a field trip, camping trip, or hiking excursion
Celebrating Earth Day on April 22nd
Making your own fossils
Watching birds
Searching for bugs
Creating rock art
Making a bird feeder
Doing a nature scavenger hunt
Exploring rocks and minerals in nature or at museums
Keeping a nature journal
Outdoor Chores
Outdoor chores can help children to develop naturalistic intelligence by showing them how nature affects our habitats as well as the importance of responsibility and environmental stewardship.
Some outdoor chore ideas include:
Planting a flower or vegetable garden
Weeding the garden
Watering plants regularly
Mowing the lawn
Picking up twigs and other debris
Creating and maintaining a compost pile
Taking the dog for a walk
Bring the Outdoors Inside
Although being outside lends itself to developing naturalistic intelligence, some traditionally outdoor activities can adapt well to apartments or other indoor environments. Some ideas include:
Growing small pots of herbs to be used in cooking
Maintaining indoor plants, such as spider plants, ivy, and flowers
Separating garbage and recyclables
Watching documentaries about nature
Reading books about animals
Taking a virtual tour of the National Museum of Natural History
There are numerous ways to develop naturalistic intelligence, and such skills often lend themselves to success in STEM fields. However, regardless of whether a child decides to pursue a STEM career, developing naturalistic intelligence is important because it teaches students patience, observation skills, empathy, an appreciation for the natural world, and how to engage in environmental conversation.
Ready to Learn More
About Connections Academy?
Explore the benefits of attending Connections Academy, a tuition-free, accredited online public school that’s passionate about helping your child thrive.
Related Posts
-
-
Discover How Riddles Can Improve Your Child’s Creativity
by Christopher E. Nelson
-
10 Computer Keyboard Shortcuts and Other Tips for Kids
by Christopher E. Nelson
Students at every level and in every environment need to learn time-management skills. For online students, technology plays a huge role in managing time for virtual school tasks.
The basics of time management for online students come down to knowing how to navigate computers to access online and technology-based educational resources and how to sort them and the information they’ve gleaned from them. Today’s students must be able to type well, and then, to make their lives easier, they need to learn keyboard shortcuts for the most frequently used computer functions.
Below we offer some computer keyboard shortcuts to help your online or homeschool student get the most out of his or her time spent preparing for and participating in the online classroom.
Typing and Keyboard Practice for Kids
Let’s start with the computer basics for kids. TypingClub offers more than 600 lessons that teach touch-typing with the correct hand posture for every key. Its game structure and animated stories make lessons engaging and fun, and the student’s work is rewarded by stars, badges, and increasing levels of mastery to reach for. TypingClub computer lessons for kids are free, but a premium, ad-free version requires a fee.
Keyboard Shortcuts for Online Learning
Computer keyboard shortcuts are combinations of two or more keys that execute certain tasks that otherwise require a mouse-click on a menu link or some other type of input. Some are well-known, like Control (Ctrl) + C (Command or Cmd + C on a Mac) to copy highlighted text and save it to be pasted elsewhere with Ctrl + V or Cmd + V.
Shortcuts are timesavers for those who know them well enough to use them by second nature. Here is a printable pdf of 10 PC and Mac keyboard shortcuts every virtual school student should know for streamlining online schoolwork.
Once your student has become comfortable with the basic keyboard shortcuts, there are many more they can learn to save time and impress their friends in Microsoft Windows and for Apple’s Mac operating systems. Below, we’ve gathered 10 of our favorite keyboard shortcuts for staying organized.
10 Computer Keyboard Shortcuts for Better Organization
1. Win (Windows key) + E
Open File Explorer, a window that shows your frequently used folders, recently used files (and their locations), and a search box.
2. Ctrl + W
Close current window or document.
3. Alt + F4
Close current window or document.
4. Win + D
Minimize all windows open on the desktop. Press again to restore.
5. Ctrl + T
Open a new browser tab.
6. Ctrl + Shift + T
Reopen the most recently closed browser tab.
7. Win + T
Cycle through apps pinned to your task bar.
8. Alt + Tab
Show items open on your desktop and cycle through them. Alt + Shift + Tab will cycle backwards.
9. Alt + Esc
Cycle through open items in the order they were opened.
10. Win + Shift + Left/Right Arrow
Move the current window to the other monitor if you have multiple screens.
Sort Online Classes or Projects with Virtual Desktops
The truly busy online student can create one or more virtual desktops on their PC to establish a dedicated space for each class or project. Virtual desktops let you access all the notes, documents, apps, web pages, etc., pertaining to a specific topic or task with one keystroke instead of shuffling through windows to find them. It’s also a good way to separate schoolwork from, say, game or entertainment apps.
Add a virtual desktop to your PC with Win + Ctrl + D. Then switch back and forth between them with Win + Ctrl + Left/Right Arrow. Click the task view icon on your task bar to see your multiple desktops (and hop between them by clicking on them) and what’s open on the one that’s currently active. Here’s how to create virtual desktops on a Mac.
Having the proper tools makes any task easier, but knowing what the proper tools are capable of leads to efficiency. We cited just a few of the many computer keyboard shortcuts available to help make virtual school tasks more efficient. To help your student further increase their computer capabilities and confidence, check out these seven computer skills your child should master by the time he or she starts virtual high school.
read more
