A Teacher Co-Design Adventure

What happens when a group of educators trades their staffroom for sage, and lesson plans for lettuce? You get a co-design session that’s as playful as it is powerful.

Recently, our team of dedicated teachers gathered in our community garden for a unique professional development experience, we asked them to step outside, slow down, and see the world through a child’s eyes. The results were lots of laughter, learning, and a renewed passion for outdoor education.

We kicked things off with a sensory-rich nature walk. The challenge? Embrace your inner child.

Teachers explored the garden as if they were six years old again. Touching, smelling, listening, and observing with curiosity and delight. We encouraged everyone to notice the little things: a bouncy allium puff, the way the sun filters through leaves, the sound of bees bumbling from flower to flower.

With no pressure to analyse or assess, this simple activity sparked a deep sense of joy and presence. It reminded us that outdoor learning doesn’t need to be complicated, it just needs to be felt!

After the walk, we gathered around our “Big Flower” a giant visual tool used to explore the barriers and solutions to outdoor learning. Each part of the flower held a prompt:

Roots – What do you need to do outdoor education in green spaces?

Growth – What have you already learned and used from your own experiences in the garden? What do you feel you still need to learn?

Petals – What would your ideal outdoor education project look like?

Aphids – What is stopping you?

Ladybirds - How can we help?

Common challenges included:

Staff time, motivation and capacity

Funding e.g. money to buy new resources

Lack of access to outdoor resources e.g. outdoor tap, compost

But this didn’t stop the creativity from flowing. In true co-design spirit, the group brainstormed solutions, big and small:

Embedding nature-based activities into everyday lessons

Shared awareness for work in community

Campus collaborations between schools and nurseries

Creating a farm to fork experience

By the end of the session, the flowers were full of ideas, and so were our minds.

Growing Forward

This co-design session was more than a walk in the garden. It was a chance to reconnect with nature, with a child’s perspectives and the joy of learning.

As one teacher put it, “I didn’t realise how much I needed this until I was sitting on a bench listening to the birds”

And that’s the beauty of outdoor learning. It grounds us, lifts us, and opens up new ways of thinking, both for children and the adults who guide them. Here’s to more mud, more wonder and wilder ideas.

Thanks for reading. We hope it has inspired you too.

Stay Playful,

Playful Green Dundee x

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P.s. We are on Instagram too… come find us here for more behind the scenes and news.

If you’d like to know more about team Playful Green Dundee…

🌿 You can find out more about the Maxwell Centre here.

🍄 There’s more about the Toadstool Trail and WhimSicAL LusH here.