Staff photo / R. Michael Semple Dave Murduck, 58, of Bristolville, not only teaches science in his fifth-grade Champion Middle School classroom — he seeks every opportunity to get all district students outside.

CHAMPION — Middle school science teacher Dave Murduck wants kids to go outside.

“Kids today hardly get outdoors,” said Murduck, 58, of Bristolville. “We (as kids) were outdoors all the time.

“Active outdoor learning is so important.”

He makes a point of taking his fifth-grade science classes at Champion Middle School on field trips. A favorite is to check out stream life at Swine Creek Reservation in Middlefield.

“Most of those kids had never picked up a salamander,” he said.

Cellphones, video games and other electronics get part of the blame. Another share lies in today’s education system, which has become obsessed with stringent testing regimes over curriculum choices, he said.

An unexpected result of diminishing recess time in favor of test prep is eroding social skills, Murduck said.

“You learn to deal with social issues when you’re outside with other kids. You work it out,” he said.

“I didn’t realize the social aspects as kids worked together. When you get 100 kids cutting invasive species (privet, a group of shrubs and small trees originating from southern and eastern Asia) along the Cuyahoga River and they see the results after an hour, they realize what they can do when they work together.”

Murduck is helping to develop a two-acre outdoor labratory on the Champion Local Schools complex, has established an after-school science club, raises rainbow trout in the classroom for students to release into the Grand River as part of a state program, brings in speakers for community talks on earth sciences, and organizes hikes and field trips to a variety of outdoor venues.

“If we don’t get children involved in environmental education when they’re young, they’re not going to be involved in the outdoors when they’re older,” he said. “Get outdoors. Make connections. If we don’t protect it now, it won’t be there in the future.

“Five to six years ago, I spent a week on the EPA ship the Lake Guardian, a research vessel that serves on the Great Lakes. I got a firsthand view of the environmental challenges, and they provided some grant money for a stewardship project.”

He works with the Trumbull County Soil and Water Conservation District and the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, and has raised more than $35,000 in grant money from whatever groups he can to sponsor outdoors learning.

Murdock said he developed his love for the outdoors growing up in the 1960s in Columbia Station in Lorain County.

“My grandfather loved the outdoors and had a fabulous garden. I used to go and help him with it,” Murdock, 58, said. “Later, I was a Boy Scout. I’m an Eagle Scout. I learned about stewardship and the environment from my grandpa and from Scouts.”

After earning degrees in biology and geology at Dennison University, he began teaching, for five years in Berea and the last 19 years in Champion. He met his wife, Tracie, a third-grade teacher for Grand Valley Local Schools, at a teachers workshop at SeaWorld of Ohio in Aurora. They have two children, a daughter who is a freshman and a son in sixth grade.

“When I started teaching, I started after-school science clubs and a science fair in Berea and then in Champion.” Now about 150 students are participating. “So basically, a third of the school.”

His after-school science clubs include all grades up to eighth, and he works with the Envirothon, an environmentally themed academic competition, for high-schoolers.

“Last year, I got out of my comfort zone and planned a trip to Traverse City (Mich.). I had 50 kids for three days and two nights.”

Among the activities were sailing on a research schooner, exploring the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and visiting the Great Lakes Children’s Museum.

“When you have 50 kids, you better keep them busy,” he said. “It was the most difficult thing I’ve done, but the most rewarding. The appreciation I feel from all the learning from the kids is what keeps me going. It keeps me motivated.”

Most of the students were in grades 7 to 9. He’s already planning another trip for October with mostly sixth- and seventh-graders.

“Five or six times a year, students and their families go on family hikes. We’ve had as many as 120 kids and family members hiking with us.”

They’ve gone to places like the West Woods and Punderson State Park in Geauga County and Hiram College Field Station in Portage County, as well as local trails.

His other passion is teaching teachers, getting others in education involved in teaching the outdoor sciences. He presents at conferences statewide and nationally.

Murduck’s efforts to not only bring the outdoors inside, but to take students from the classroom outside, have earned him a pile of teaching awards. The latest is the North American Association for Environmental Education named him 2019 K-12 Environmental Educator of Year.

Other recent honors are the 2016 Arthur Holden Jennings Science Award for Excellence, a top four finalist in the Ohio Teacher of the Year program and the Environmental Education Council of Ohio’s 2018 Outstanding Environmental Educator in the Field of Formal Education.

“Dave Murduck exemplifies the key characteristics of an outstanding environmental educator,” Judy Braus, executive director of NAAEE, said. “He uses creativity in the classroom, facilitates student learning and community engagement, and demonstrates the importance of modeling leadership and collaboration. His students are so lucky to have him as their teacher and mentor.”

So what has the teacher learned from the students?

“The kids I teach today are the same kids I taught 24 years ago,” he said. “They get excited about the same things. They have the same emotions and social issues that we did. They love to learn. They love to be accepted. They like feeling like they’re important.

“When you get kids excited today, it’s amazing the joy they find when they’re learning and having fun,” he said. “I’m constantly reminded why I wanted to be a teacher when I see the excitement in children.”