Keeping a journal can be a uniquely powerful and personal firsthand learning experience. Here’s why:

1.     Children are deeply engaged in this kind of learning. The stimulus of interacting with a real object – a leaf, a twig, or a live organism such as a bird or an insect – immediately engages student curiosity. It does not require prior preparation for learning like reading a text.

2.     Engaging with real phenomena raises authentic questions. Teachers do not have to be the sole source of what questions to discuss. Engagement with the world of real phenomena raises its own questions. The lesson is then driven by what students want to know. This does not devalue the teacher’s questions. It means that the teacher’s questions become part of a dialogue in which student questions are equally valued. Valuing student questions helps them to believe in the power of their own minds.

3.   Drawing observations as well as writing about them sharpens student observational skills. It gets them to pay attention to details, and these details become a source of new questions. Writing about their observations also helps students to clarify their thinking. The statement “I don’t know what I think until I read what I say” has some relevance here. Writing is also a stimulus for formulating new questions.

4.    Journal-keeping provides a window into student thinking. Over time, it reveals the progress in the development of student thought processes. In this way, the journal can be used to evaluate the progress of student growth. By keeping a journal, they are learning to articulate their thinking in increasingly powerful ways through the practice of formulating and answering their own questions. It provides a map of the learning process that is taking place.

5. The journal is a source of pride for the student. It is a documented record of their learning experiences. It is a valuable tool not just in a single context, like an outdoor learning experience. It can be used in virtually all learning contexts such as a museum visit, a field trip, or in the everyday classroom where it can support learning in all disciplines – even mathematics and social studies. 

Video link from Massachusetts Audubon featuring the Science of Massachusetts Program for Schools