Herb Broda


The pavement as a teaching tool!

As the snow finally melts, the paved areas around our buildings emerge once again. Paved walkways and play areas can be natural locations for incidental learning. Recently I was at Worth Primary School in Sylvester, Georgia and saw this wonderfully innovative way to integrate the arts into the outdoors. A […]


Using Books as a Springboard

Winter is a great time to explore books that could be incorporated into outdoor teaching. A few years ago I met Florence Milutinovic of Park Forest Elementary in State College, Pennsylvania who shared with me a wonderful way to incorporate outdoor learning into a unit about prehistoric life. Here is […]


Feed the birds…Inspire learning!

  I have a vivid image of Linda’s former building and classroom. She used to teach in one of those wonderful old rooms with creaky wooden floors and lots of wall space. There wasn’t much wall to be seen, though, since nearly every square inch was covered—mostly with nature related […]


Schoolyard Graphs

It was a strange sight—twenty three fifth graders forming several head-to-toe lines as they stretched out on the playground. Although it looked like a game, these students were actually taking an abstract concept and translating it into concrete (pardon the pun!) terms.   Teacher Laura Grimm had been teaching the […]


Create-A-Wilderness

Schools in urban environments frequently have meager amounts of green space that can be utilized for outdoor learning. The National Inventor’s Hall of Fame® Middle School…Center for STEM Learning in Akron, Ohio was faced with exactly that challenge. The school is in the heart of downtown Akron, surrounded by concrete, […]