What if you could increase creativity in your students without teaching anything? You can, let the environment help you!
The environment is the most visible aspect of the work done in the schools by all the protagonists. It conveys the message that this is a place where adults have thought about the quality and instructive power of space. – Lella Gandini
There’s a plethora of research supporting the positive influence of nature, posters, and the color green. Many schools don’t have windows and/or enjoy all seasons of the year which don’t offer views of green space. There’s a solution! Today, most classrooms are equipped with at least one projector or television, many of which aren’t used throughout the day. Maximize the technology using a Google Slides or PowerPoint presentation showing green images and infuse content or motivational sayings within them to boost creativity. To give you a head start, I created one for you that can be modified or used in its existing form. There are 50 images with every 4th image offering a motivational saying consistent with grit and the growth mindset. All images are freely distributable without attribution from https://www.pixabay.com.
Presentation to play in your browser:
Get Creative & Motivated Presentation – Green Photos with Motivational Sayings
Note: Images transition every minute. Don’t forget to make the presentation full screen using the controls on the lower-left side of the screen.
Editable Presentation:
Get Creative & Motivated Google Slides Copy
Modify anything you wish: add content instead of motivational sayings and/or add your own images. Make it your own and optimize it for your environment. The images included were downloaded from https://pixabay.com
Tech Hack 1: When using Google Apps, if a document has been shared, adding /copy to the end automatically prompts the user to create a copy leaving the original intact.
Tech Hack 2: If performance becomes an issue, the presentation can be downloaded as a PowerPoint file which eliminates bandwidth requirements. Open the Editable Presentation and click File > Download As > Microsoft PowerPoint (.pptx). .
“In order to act as an educator for the child, the environment has to be flexible: it must undergo frequent modification by the children and the teachers in order to remain up-to-date and responsive to their needs to be protagonists in constructing their knowledge.” – Lella Gandini
References:
Does Green Space Make Better Students? | Chicago magazine ….” 1 Mar. 2016, http://www.chicagomag.com/city-life/March-2016/green-space-schools/. Accessed 7 Jan. 2017.
Fertile Green – Mar 16, 2012.” 15 Mar. 2012, http://psp.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/03/15/0146167212436611.abstract. Accessed 7 Jan. 2017.