[Reporter: David Common] Letting go these days can be tough.
Life in COVID is full of little details and big decisions.
The routine of morning drop off a test of risk tolerance.
And yet at the Guelph Outdoor school there's seemingly no worry.
They're outdoors so it's not like they're stuck inside a building with the recycled air
or anything like tha.
I think that this is the best option honestly right now with what's going on
I'm just going to say bring bug spray because it's a lot of mosquitoes.
Oh really? OK that's good advice.
Right, bug spray because the classroom here is the forest.
All day, every day.
How do you know it's the choke cherry tree guys?
I believe the stem is smooth.
[Reporter] There's learning here but not what you might find in a traditional school setting.
We're actually trying to support kids in making sense of a changing world.
Chris Green was a classroom teacher
and eight years ago built this alternative.
A supplement to regular school with kids coming here instead
once or twice a week during the normal school year.
In the classroom kids are just brought along on something
and they don't have that chance to exercise like their agency
and follow their curiosity.
And when we give them an option to do that in this place
it creates great results.
I remember the frogs.
[Reporter] Over the summer it's given kids practice for the school year.
They're cohorting 10 maximum together including the instructors.
And amid the evolving guidance on COVID precautions
one thing that's never changed.
Being outside is generally considered safer.
For me it's always made sense to have kids outside doing this kind of thing
and now it makes double the sense because it's now shifted from an educational
and developmental initiative
to a kind of a preventative public health initiative.
So to tell the difference, there's a red flower in the middle of clean ends.
Nice.
And that's not on waterhemlock.
David is 13 and this fall will not be back in the classroom.
One of his moms is immunocompromised.
Because my partner is so fragile
it's not safe for us as a family to have him go back to school.
[Reporter] So Cheryl Cadogan has decided David will learn online
but at least once a week continue to come here
to spend time with other kids.
It's definitely concerning but at the end of the day his mental health
is also an important part of this.
And so it's a balancing act.
It's too small to be an eagle.
[Reporter] There are plenty of like-minded parents willing to spend the 65 dollars a day
all this costs though there are many options for lower income families too.
Enrollment here is way up.
And a new partnership with a local Montessori school
means there will be a full-time program on offer this fall.
What are your phone calls and emails like?
I can't even keep up.
This year we've added about seven full-time programs on top of our first ten
and it filled in a day.
Like the phone is off the hook and I can't even keep track.
The idea of moving class outside is hardly new.
Tuberculosis pushed Toronto, New York and other cities to form open-air schools in the early 1900s.
Kids were fed hot drinks, taught how to hand wash, even napped outside.
Hundred years ago there was a realization that fresh air can help reduce disease transmission.
And I think we need to take and take a look at that and start considering that again.
[Reporter] Dr. Linsey Marr of Virginia Tech studies how viruses spread through the air.
She says those outdoor schools were onto something
that could apply now to COVID-19.
I think outdoors is going to be much safer than indoors
and so any opportunity that there is to move an activity outdoors
I would definitely jump on that.
What is it about being outside that makes things so much lower risk.
The main thing about being outside is that there's a lot of dilution.
So if somebody is infected and they're releasing virus into the air
if you can think of a smoker being outdoors
that rapidly disperses throughout the atmosphere and becomes very dilute.
Whereas if you're indoors, that smoke or the virus can be trapped
and build up in the air.
[Reporter] So the idea is get people out of the inside and into the outside.
Absolutely and take advantage of the space that you have available too.
[Reporter] Of course, most Canadians live in cities and suburbs
and their kids largely go to public schools where there isn't always a forest next door.
It's great to see over in the schoolyard some raised bed planters.
These are quick and easy starts for schools to get started
to support their outdoor learning environment.
This schoolyard in Toronto's Kensington market is full of features
like shade and places to sit.
But the message from Canada's largest school board in Toronto
is that outdoor learning can happen anywhere.
Outdoor education principal David Hawker-Budlovsky is leading that push.
We don't need grandiose outdoor classrooms.
It's not about erecting tents and replicating the classroom in an outdoor space.
It's actually about thinking differently about the spaces that we have.
Do you have teachers, principals who are skeptics?
Absolutely, absolutely.
For some people it is going to be just starting with your read aloud underneath a tree.
For others it is going to be going into that local green space
that may even look like a ravine and talk about shelter buildings.
Strong and stable structures.
So yes there are skeptics.
But yes, there are champions.
And together we need to work in this new reality that we're living.
How much of your year will you spend out here as opposed to in that building?
For sure, it'll be a third of the day all year.
But if I can do more I will.
[Reporter] At this public school in Caledon, north of Toronto
Janice Haines is used to teaching classes outdoors.
Even in winter.
These kids are dressed for the weather
and we're out in very cold weather.
It's just the time.
You have to just monitor the time
and make sure these kids have what they need.
[Reporter] Students here already see nature as a classroom.
Whether it's a lesson in the freezing cold or a project outside in the spring
outdoor learning has taken hold here.
But it wasn't an easy sell at first.
When we first began the outdoor program we had the usual kids
that hung around the doors and really felt uncomfortable.
But as time went on we don't have those door hangers anymore.
Pamela Gibson's been teaching outdoors for years
and helped create the program here in the early 2000s.
How do you connect the curriculum that you've got to follow
with being outside?
We have to remember curriculum came from here.
It's supposed to be what children need to function in the world, not just inside the building.
Not just inside their homes.
Not just at their dance lessons but out here in the real world, in their community.
well and they spend a lot of time doing waterways with trucks through there so
[Reporter] And in this pandemic Pamela and Janice see opportunity.
Change is happening in so many workplaces so fast.
Why not in schools?
This is an opportunity for great change
and for catching up on maybe some things we could do better.
[Reporter] No doubt those benefiting the most from this are the kids.
I like just being outside and just getting out in nature.
[Reporter] What if it was like this all the time?
I'd love that.
So would many parents.
Yes COVID has made this a safer choice for many
but climbing beyond the limits of a classroom
means the future of education could look a lot more like this.
Not a school in a community.
But a community that is a school.
David Common, CBC News, Guelph, Ontario.