Embodied Learning by Amanda Huynh

 Embodied Learning through Outdoor Painting

Embodied Learning

Embodied learning regards using your body in the process of your learning. Just as the body can reflect negative feelings and experiences, such as panic attacks and physical stress manifested in the body, the body can also absorb positive feelings and experiences, such as yoga, meditation, and grounding exercises that relax the body, release stress, and more.

About Grounding

Grounding is a therapeutic technique that focuses on realigning your electrical energy by reconnecting to the earth (healthline.com). According to the National Center for Biotechnical Information, “grounding has been documented to have profound beneficial effects on physiological and emotional stress. Grounding includes a normalizing influence on cortisol, a calming impact on the electrical activity of the brain, and a normalization of muscular tension.”

This Activity

Using the concept of embodied learning, participants will be prompted to immerse themselves outdoors and paint a picture of their view, grounding themselves in the process.

Goal

The goal of this activity is to successfully ground yourself during the process of painting outdoors. Through this method of embodied learning, participants should leave the activity in a calmer, less anxious state.

Materials:

• Outdoor landscape
• Paint of your choice (watercolor, acrylic, oil, etc.)
• Paintbrushes
• Water
• Easel* (not necessary, but make the process easier)

Set up:

Find a relaxing outdoor scenery to paint. Feel free to do this activity alone or with others (preferably ones that do not disrupt your peace). Set up your paint materials and get to painting the scenery! Please see the video example below for a visual walk-through.  

Video example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jvU2iEgO_QLinks to an external site.

Grounding Prompt

This grounding activity will ask that you focus on your senses on how your body is aiding you in the process of your painting. (I apologize for the odd table formatting, it's a picture from the Microsoft Word version of my project because it wasn't pasting correctly into Canvas.)

This grounding activity will ask that you focus on your senses on how your body is aiding you in the process of your painting.

If one of your senses is lacking, immerse yourself in the other senses!