Why can't we just have class outside?

It might sound crazy, but kids learn outside all the time, and did so even before the pandemic. About 250 “forest schools” exist in the U.S., in which younger kids spend much of their time in nature, and some have stayed open during the pandemic. In Denmark and Italy, some schools have reopened in recent months because students are spending as much of their day outdoors as possible. Outdoor school has even been tried during past epidemics: In the early 1900s, during a tuberculosis outbreak in Rhode Island, kids attended a school with the windows always open, even in the winter. They sat in sleeping-bag-like blankets and had heated soapstones placed at their feet, The New York Times reported. Eventually, there were 65 such “open air” schools around the country.

And many places in less-developed countries have rudimentary classrooms that are functionally outdoors. “There are people in countries throughout the world who learn outdoors every day,” said Scott Goldstein, the director of EmpowerEd, a teacher-advocacy organization that has been working on getting schools to hold classes outside. “They use good, old-fashioned chalkboards.”

Sharon Danks, the CEO of Green Schoolyards America, an outdoor-education advocacy group, told me that representatives from about 25 different cities, schools, and districts have been in touch with the group and are considering outdoor schooling, though none have said yet that they will definitely do school all outdoors, all the time.