Make every day a school day in the Lake District

Our John Muir Trust Award Manager for Cumbria, Graham Watson shares his thoughts on why every day should be a school day in the Lake District.

Thursday 19^th May is Outdoor Classroom Day and many schools across Cumbria, the UK and even across the World will be heading outdoors. Some will find creative ways to enhance their curriculum subjects such as maths or English, and others will take the opportunity to look for broader learning about the world.

I’d like to share one of my favourite activities and encourage you, whether you are teacher, pupil, adult, young person, in school, on holiday or just on a work break to try it.

But it's not just for schools as every day is a school day in the Lake District.

Frame it!

It’s a very simple activity. Ask yourself or your companions questions about what you can see in the landscape. As an activity it has endless permutations limited only by your curiosity and imagination. I’d encourage anyone to try this and imagine all the different things going on involving both people and all other nature. You might not know the answers of course but you can discuss it with someone – your friends, a local, anyone who might have a view.

You don’t need a frame but for a teacher having a frame with some questions* on allows you to give some direction to what your pupils might consider. This is a great activity for encouraging us to think about other people’s perspectives of the landscape.

This type of learning through curiosity and encouraging imagination is at the heart of my work with the John Muir Award in Cumbria. Through this we encourage people to explore wild places and think about how:

• Nature can have the freedom to repair and restore itself
• People have the freedom to enjoy these places, and
• Communities have the freedom to thrive.

These three freedoms have a dependence on each other and are the focus of the John Muir Trust’s work.

What I ultimately want you to do is to be #LakeDistrictKind and care for our wonderful National Park. And enjoy yourself, of course!

* the questions on this frame are:

• What’s special about this place?
• What can I do here?
• Who enjoys a visit here?
• How can I look after it?
• Who makes a living here?
• Who works with who here?
• Are there conflicts here?

And we're asked to think about these in the past, the future, community, nature, economy, society and access. Enjoy learning in the Lake District .