The second year of our Michigan Teachers Exploring Nature (MiTEN) Program has come and gone! For three weeks, an incredible group of 12 future elementary teachers from MSU’s teacher prep program adventured into outdoor teaching and learning. Together we sought answers to the driving question, How can we take advantage of the learning opportunities nature provides? While we experienced firsthand the joy and wonder of learning in and with nature. As a final project, the group chose to create an Instagram account and is collaborating to share content about their experiences. Please follow us @MiTeachNature
Throughout our experience each participant tried new things like fishing, macro invertebrate sampling, mindfulness activities, nature journaling, games and environmental education activities from Project Learning Tree and more! For our final week together, at Camp Ebersole we shared the camp with 5th graders from Lansing public schools and had an amazing time playing capture the flag, slingshotting, canoeing, crafting, dancing and more. A highlight for the MiTEN students was revising the Invent an Insect activity and facilitating with small groups of 5th graders!!! The 5th graders’ explored the trails, capturing insects and then used their experience and observations to imagine and design creative insects. The resulting clay creatures were extremely clever. the MiTEN facilitators did an amazing job connecting, instructing, questioning, encouraging and guiding learning!
About the MiTEN program
Dr. Cory Miller and I developed the program after teaching elementary science methods courses and being challenged to include place-based, outdoor science experiences into coursework. After researching the interest and impact of outdoor learning while teaching the science methods course for students in their internship year (TE 804) we started developing the MiTEN program. Leaning into our prior work with project- and place-based teacher professional learning we designed a cohort-centered experience that utilizes main campus, local schoolyards and Lansing Public School’s Ebersole Environmental Education Center.
For 2025, Ebersole educator, Jillian Osbourne-Hawkins, joined our leadership team strengthening our discussions around recreation and children’s learning and helping prepare the undergraduates to facilitate fun and learning for youth while at Camp Ebersole.
Cory and I find immense joy in this work. Our research regarding both cohorts 1 and 2 is confirming that our students were looking for a space to belong. They have shared with us the importance of finding ‘their people’, like-minded early career teachers that enjoy being outdoors and want to provide engaging and meaningful instruction for their students. They have built community through conversations and teaching experiences that centered student (and teacher) mental and physical well-being.