Cindy Soule is a teacher in Portland, Maine, an area known for very cold and snowy winters. But cold weather is not stopping Soule and her students from continuing with outdoor learning during COVID-19.
Besides online learning, schools across the U. S. also encourage outdoor learning to keep students and teachers safe and stop the spread (传播) of COVID-19. In Portland, they set up over 90 outdoor learning spaces across eight schools.
"The students seem to like the outdoor classroom. They're begging me to go out," said Soule. They study in usual classrooms for half the week. For the other half, they learn outdoors.
Adam Ali is one of Soule's students. The 9-year-old boy noted some of the differences between outdoor learning and online learning.
"It's a good thing because you can see the real thing," Ali said. "We learn what is around us. It's much better than online learning. We have Internet, but it's just very slow. If anybody else in the house is on the Internet, it's really hard to do things. "
For schools in Portland, the pandemic (流行病) has marked the first official use of outdoor learning. And they will keep it going even after the pandemic ends.
Soule said her students will never forget the pandemic's difficulties. But she hoped studying in nature will be among their good memories of 2020.
"They' re seeing the outdoors around them and learning. They love it. Students learn better when they' re active," Soule said. "They will remember that forever. "
