Flow Learning™

Created by Joseph Cornell, educator and author of the Sharing Nature® series of books, Flow Learning™ has been praised by educators and facilitators worldwide for its ease of use, effectiveness, and power to uplift and inspire.

Flow Learning™ gives teachers and youth leaders a simple, structured way to guide students into their own, direct experiences of nature. Through playful games that awaken the students’ curiosity and enthusiasm, learning becomes fun, immediate, and dynamic, instead of static and secondhand. The students emerge with a living, fresh understanding and reverence for the natural world.

Flow Learning is based on universal principles of how people learn. It provides a simple, natural framework that sequence nature activities for maximum effect.

The four stages of Flow Learning are:

1. Awaken Enthusiasm   2. Focus Attention
3. Experience Directly  4. Share Inspiration.

A Flow Learning session begins with lively, playful activities that awaken the students’ energy and enthusiasm. The second series of activities challenge the students to focus their attention through their senses of touch, hearing, and sight. The third stage offers activities that immerse the students in their own direct experiences of the natural surroundings. By becoming absorbed in an aspect of nature, the players experience what it is like to be part of the natural world. Finally, the students gather and share the inspiration of their experiences.

“Flow Learning involves all of my students and keeps discipline problems to a minimum.”

—Carol Malnor, Educator and Curriculum Developer

“What never ceases to amaze me is that people so easily engage with Sharing Nature games and the inspired Flow Learning strat-egy. Flow Learning is so potent, so gentle, that it seems the most natural and obvious way to communicate nature education to children and adults.”

—Kate Akers, Outdoor Educator, New Zealand

“Flow Learning takes us beyond the intellect, and into the heart where true understanding and appreciation can take place.”

—Michael Smithson, Chief of Resource Education, Olympic National Park