Quick Note: AI + Teaching + Nature
A Confluence of Now & Need
I promised a letter about the Nature Pyramid-Food Pyramid stuff, but with so many recent AI-related education posts, I am compelled to send a quick note to a few of my newfound Substack friends
, , , .Is it ok to have a thesis in a letter? This one does.
Thesis: AI has cued the moment – and deepened the need – for nature connection in schools.
Before I forget:
Tl;dr*
The NEED for nature connection has never been greater. As computers become more human-like and we spend more time in virtual worlds, nature-connection honors our innate affinity for living things honed over millennia spent evolving IN nature. It yields real wellness benefits for our real human selves — benefits we need now.
NOW is the moment for nature connection in schools. AI can free up teacher bandwidth to focus on the “good stuff” of teaching (connections, collaboration, growing of good humans). From there, nature connections support the “good stuff.” And, as I’ve mentioned before, nature-based learning is a set of tools educators can use to grow those nature connections and access nature’s benefits.
*Ironically, the ChatGPT let me down on this one - had to write this Tl;dr myself.
A powerful tool
Somewhere, someone likened ChatGPT’s relationship to writing to the role of a calculator in mathematics. Do you know the source?
, you mentioned this analogy in passing on this podcast - are you the originator? I asked ChatGPT, and here’s what it said:I'm not aware of any specific person who compared ChatGPT to a calculator. However, some people might make this comparison because both ChatGPT and calculators are tools that can perform computations or provide information based on user input.
Next, ChatGPT highlighted an obvious difference: calculators are for math and ChatGPT is for language. And then it threw this down:
ChatGPT has the ability to learn and adapt to new information and contexts, which makes it much more versatile than a calculator.
Woah nelly. A powerful tool that gets stronger by the nanosecond!
AI + Teaching
Lots of peeps are thinking, talking, and writing (or are computers doing the writing?!) about what AI means for education - for students, teachers, teaching, curriculum design, assessments, and so forth. My fave recent AI-in-education piece is The Future of Teaching is Here, in which I think
…is saying,‘In the era of AI, teaching-for-transmission must change.’
Or maybe:
‘In the era of AI, teaching-for-transmission can change’
Yes please!
Good teaching has NEVER been about the transmission of knowledge. If AI can help liberate us from those shackles, I say,
Welcome ChatGPT and all of its cousins!
AI can make room for the “good stuff” of teaching and learning: fostering community and guiding students to observe, listen, and share with empathy; empowering students to develop informed opinions, contribute to society and to a more compassionate, just world for human and other-than-human 🐕🐴🦒🌲🍁🌸🐛🪲 life and for our planet 🌏 itself. Oh - and supporting creativity, collaboration, emotional intelligence, self-discovery, beauty (Thanks
for highlighting some of these here). And connections to one another and to nature. So much good stuff.AI + nature
When it comes to nature, AI will NEVER replace or be the real deal.
The myriad benefits of nature connection for humans – increased physical, emotional, and mental wellbeing; enhanced cognition; heightened creativity; improved relationships; better self-regulation – exist IRL (in real life).
AI will never…
🌈 Inspire awe. (@Dacher Keltner - please weigh in!)
🫁 Breathe.
🌿 Grow.
🌍 Live.
❤️ Fulfill our fundamental need to connect with living things.
Still, I bet AI can be leveraged in pursuit of better relationships with nature. There’s a well-worn trail of human-nature-connection technologies. My brother (@Ben Katz) once claimed Pokémon Go got more kids outdoors than Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign. Lacking data to substantiate his assertion, he named the potential of tech-nature partnerships.
Digitally enhanced and facilitated nature experiences are ubiquitous (think GPS, and apps like AllTrails, MTBProject). Folks like @Jared Hanley with NatureQuant are bringing together tech and tons of data to create tools for human health through nature access. Educational-citizen-science apps like Merlin Bird ID App, PlantNet Plant Identification, and iNaturalist are deepening understanding of place and ecosystem. And social-engagement tech innovations like Outerly facilitate human-nature and human-to-human connections. There are surely dozens (hundreds?) of other technologies that support human-nature connection with many more to come.
These examples are all about tech-nature partnerships – not specifically AI. It will be interesting to see AI’s role in fostering human-nature connections. I bet some creative AI designers out there will think of ways AI can help our connection with the natural world.
Do you have ideas about how AI will support human-nature connections?
Drop a comment! 👇
AI + Teaching + Nature: A Confluence of Now & Need
We have reached a watershed moment, a confluence of NOW and NEED. AI is blurring lines between computers and humans, pushing us farther from our origins in nature. Of nature.
The Oxford dictionary defines artificial as: made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally, especially as a copy of something natural.
By definition, AI threatens our connection to nature and our ability to access its benefits. Even recognizing the positive ways tech (soon AI), nature, and humans can coexist, it is clear: AI is not the real deal. AI can’t touch the earth, feel the breeze, see a Monarch butterfly land on a leaf, hear a sparrow’s trill, bite into a crisp, tart apple.
And, AI is undoubtedly a powerful tool. Wielded appropriately in schools, I believe it can unlock educators’ abilities to focus on the “good stuff” of teaching and learning (see above for what I mean by the “good stuff”). Nature connection – easily embedded in schools through nature-based learning – directly delivers the “good stuff” of teaching and learning. And, it ties right back into the thousands of years we’ve spent evolving in nature. Being of nature. It “double clicks” on our innate love for nature and all living things. (#biophilia).
NOW is the moment for nature connection in school. The NEED has never been greater.
Talk soon,
Becca
Love the idea of allowing more time in nature thanks to this! So important to connect with nature for learning and wellness.