The pandemic has made such a profound disruption in our society. We are now faced with finding ideas to solve many new problems, the biggest being social distancing. Designers are needed more than ever to step up and develop new tools for redesigning systems to sustain our society thru the future with more equity and thoughtfulness.

The most beneficial element to outdoor learning is it brings students from an indoor, enclosed, limited-sized classroom space to a larger, more spread out, outdoor space which makes social distancing a lot easier and in-person learning a lot safer. Now that schools are starting to plan for and return to hybrid or full in-person learning, we thought it would be a great time to share some ideas for Getting Started with Outdoor Learning!

How do we take the burden off of indoor classroom spaces? By providing simple outdoor classroom spaces on school grounds and in local parks to accommodate a portion of the students or classes at each school. We do this by adding seating, outdoor teaching supplies, shade, storage and ADA paths and bathrooms.

Outdoor Classroom Standardized Plans will help School Districts when estimating costs and figuring out funding for outdoor classroom upgrades. We are currently working with School Districts throughout California to develop Outdoor Learning Standardized Plans. We have designs for small group break out areas, 50% Classroom capacity, 70% Classroom capacity and 100% Classroom Capacity.