Audience

• Students and faculty members of W&M who would like to spend more time learning or teaching outdoors

• Students and faculty members who would like more places to work outdoors, even outside of class

• Students and faculty members with health problems, where being outside is a better environment for them

Gain engagement through surveys for students and faculty, either by direct contact or events such as the Earth Day Showcase

Limitations: Pollen allergies, weather conditions, access to technology

Theory

Attention Restoration Theory

Attention Restoration Theory stems from nature's ability to stimulate soft fascination in the participants of outdoor spaces. The soft fascination caused by engaging in outdoor environments has the ability to revitalize attention and combat mental fatigue. These benefits would be essential to the abilities of college students and can help mitigate the mental and physical effects of academic stress. Locations that utilize ART most effectively focus on aspects of being away, extent, compatibility with one’s environment, and fascination with the outdoors. 

Stress Reduction Theory

Stress Reduction Theory focuses on the ability for outdoor environments to reduce stress due to our relationship with nature being primarily built into human evolution. Recreating in outdoor environments has shown a variety of mental health effects and can help combat chronic stress and the physical effects of such. Recreating in nature, even for small periods of time, has massive health benefits for the individual as seen in What is the Best Dose of Nature and Green Exercise for Improving Mental Health. 

Background & Justification

Campus Nature Rx

Campus Nature Rx details similar programs to W&M’s Outdoor Classrooms and acted as a template for many of the processes we utilized as a part of the project. Nature Rx detailed both the mental and physical benefits to improved immune system health, increased resiliency symptoms, lowered cortisol level, increased focus and ability to concentrate, reduction in stress, reduction in blood pressure, reductions to chronic stress including decrease in rumination, reduction in depression, reduction in chronic fatigue syndrome. The research also detailed the benefits of adapting greenspaces to the already lived in spaces present in any college or urban area in order to interweave nature and environment in a way that is sustainable and provides the health benefits stated. - Nature Rx: Improving College-Student Mental Health 

Associated Studies

“[Benefits of learning in nature] have been shown to occur in measures of memory, attention, concentration, impulse inhibition, and mood.” - The Impacts of Nature Experience on Human Cognitive Function and Mental Health 

When cognitive tests were administered between nature and urban groups, "forest walking groups tended to perform better (i.e. took shorter time to complete) on each experiment outcome measure of cognition tests. However, in urban walking groups, the changes in cognition scores from before and after interactions were not statistically significant.” - The influence of interaction with forest on cognitive function 

Succession & Sustainability

The Goal: Green Fee Proposal

• W&M Green Fee Fund 

• W&M Sustainability Department 

• W&M Landscape Design Guidelines 

The next milestone of this project is acquiring Green Fee funding to create these outdoor spaces at W&M. This will be Stage 2 of 3. Now that data has been gathered of suitable spaces on campus and interest from members of the W&M community, this can be used as justification in the Green Fee proposal. It is important to note that the campus will be undergoing major changes by the Fall of 2025, with the construction of the new ISC and dorm buildings. New spaces around campus should be considered for outdoor classrooms, especially near the ISC. More survey responses for more data will also always be welcome. Additionally, contact with W&M Landscape Architecture will be essential to increase chances of Green Fee approval. 

Eventually, Stage 3 can only occur once Green Fee funding has been approved. This will involve directly working with W&M Landscape Architecture to create the outdoor classrooms. Depending on the amount of infrastructure is wanted/needed in an area, we can work to draft spaces with a variety of designs. 

The main issue regarding sustainability of outdoor classrooms is upkeep. The materials used in these outdoor spaces must be durable against weathering, and if outlets are incorporated into the environment then they must be properly grounded and protected as well. Leave No Trace will be pushed in these outdoor spaces, with a Leave No Trace poster at every location. This will be used to keep these new environments safe for all current and future students. 

Once these classrooms are implemented, a system to keep track of which outdoor spaces are being utilized will be required. The Spring 2025 team has two main ideas for this:

1. An entirely separate section in PATH chosen by the professor if they would like to frequently take their class outside in a dedicated space for that class

2. A system for the professors to reserve a space around campus for the duration of their class

The latter is the more feasible choice. If outdoor classrooms were to become a significant part of W&M's campus life, then collaboration of PATH could prove to be more useful. 

Project Reflections

Strengths:

This project is extremely well-supported. Many professors and students are in favor of this idea, and it was very easy to get good backing for this project. The short surveys allowed us to get a LOT of survey responses, and we hope to add to this total in the future. There are also many great locations around W&M to hold an outdoor classroom, making it a very feasible project with assistance from the Green Fee fund. Our team was well coordinated and were able to bring our specialties into this project. We were able to apply skills we already knew and learn skills for community-based research. The ArcGIS map was a very effective way of showcasing the spaces on campus that we plan to add outdoor spaces to. 

What could be improved:

It is important to note that the survey responses are mainly from convenience sampling, and the project could benefit from a larger and more diverse group of responses, especially from the faculty's side. A 3D model could have been very useful in showing what these outdoor spaces would look like in different locations on campus. A picture would showcase these environments much better to people that may potentially be on the fence on outdoor classrooms. Additionally, if we were to do this project again, we would have focused on short surveys first, instead of spending too much time planning to write a Green Fee proposal. Getting into contact and obtaining more information from the Sustainability Department and the Green Fee proposal at the start would have been beneficial as well. However, after a little bit of redirection, we made great progress towards possibly seeing these outdoor spaces actually implemented at W&M. People were very responsive to the short surveys, and it became a point when marketing our survey that it did not take very long to complete. 

From the Chair of Marketing Department at the W&M School of Business...

"I completed the survey in which I suggest we build a Thoreau inspired house in Matoaka woods.  It doesn’t need walls, just a simple timber structure.  See below for an image of just such a house in Surry, but I would love to see one here.  The latest version has a finished floor and is great for meeting and thinking about the convergence of nature and design (and many other conversations, of course).  It comfortably holds a circle of about a dozen. Virginia House Project"