Offsite Learning Experiences - Real World Learning
At Stevenson we take Offsite Learning Experiences (OLEs, or field trips) seriously. We believe that learning is most powerful when students have the opportunity to experience learning both inside the classroom, in our local communities, and in a real-world context. Each teacher designs 6-10 OLEs during the year, each one closely tied to grade level curriculum.
Each OLE has lessons that precede the trip and lessons that help to synthesize and expand on the experience once students get back to campus. For instance, when studying watersheds the 5th-grade students engaged in a number of science lessons where they investigated evaporation, convection, and weather.
All hands on shark! (From an on-site OLE session)
They then visited the Bay Model Visitor Center to learn about how weather, the water cycle, and the bay's tides impact our local community. After the OLE, students came back to class to learn more about the impacts humans have on their local environment and watershed. OLEs like this integrate science, social studies, reading, writing, and math while giving students a real-world context from which to work.
Whether it is a museum, a farm, a theater, or State Capitol, children learn by immersing themselves in the "real world," from "real characters," about "real applications" of the knowledge and skills they are learning in the classroom.
Sometimes we also bring "offsite" experience onsite, with external educators bringing their "field trips" to Stevenson.