Research, reports and guidance on education outside the classroom and outdoor education, with a plain-English summary of each and a link to the original. New items are added every week.
The library began with Education Outside the Classroom: Applied Research Readings 2010–2017(McNatty & Boyes, University of Otago, 2017). Later items were found, summarised and checked with AI assistance using the same method: every reference is checked against the publisher's record, every summary against the published abstract, and only items rated high confidence by two independent relevance checks are published. Summaries are a guide: read the original before citing it.
36 items
On an Austrian mountain field trip, students aged 14–16 were drawn to physical features, climate-related change and ecology, and responded with feelings ranging from curiosity and joy to a sense of risk.
Portuguese primary teachers who applied an ocean citizenship model using citizen science and coastal monitoring reported gains in their practice and in student engagement, but transport and resources were barriers.
Partnerships between universities, schools, community gardens and other organisations can help teachers use school gardens well and spread sustainability knowledge to families and the wider community.
The OTTER lab approach gives teachers a five-step structure for planning sustainability education outside the classroom: prepare, orientate, discover, make an impact, reflect.
Research in four rural NSW schools found that student learning was enriched when local Aboriginal community members led teachers in climate change education, in settings enabling deep relationality with nature and Culture.
Norwegian primary teachers used outdoor swimming and water safety lessons at a local beach to build learners' resilience and teach about sustainable living.
A forest closed for biosecurity cut Year 6 children off from a place that mattered to them. A creative arts project that made them environmental communicators re-established their relationship with the forest.
After using the PlantNet app outdoors, 5th-grade students named more local plants and showed more biodiversity-related behaviours than before.
Ethnographic work in four Australian bush kinders shows how educators can observe children's play and use it to build their understanding of, and affinity with, nature.
Māori oral traditions of fire challenge the split between human-centred and nature-centred worldviews, and show the teaching potential of campfires.
Leave No Trace and its critiques can be used as a context for dialectical learning, helping students see that informed action matters and no action is innocent.
A study of a bring-your-own-device mixed reality (XR) intervention at a New Zealand marine education centre indicates XR can enhance understanding of complex marine conservation science.
The authors argue that conservation education, including learning about lethal control of introduced animals, supports the values set out in Aotearoa New Zealand's national curriculum.
High school near-peer mentors in outdoor school programmes developed critical consciousness about equity through deliberate training rooted in social justice education.
Interviews with children and young people who visited Zealandia led to three place-based approaches for using nature sanctuaries to enrich sustainability education.
A Kaipara hapū used an estuary monitoring toolkit with NIWA and local high schools to lead Indigenous environmental education, supporting self-determination and environmental guardianship.
Forest school leaders see regular, repeated time in the same natural place as helping children connect with nature, feel ownership and want to protect it.
A teacher educator describes using walking as a curriculum in an environmental education course, built around taking risks and making connections with nature and with each other.
A practical text on immersive nature play programmes in the early years, covering the benefits of learning in natural spaces, pedagogy, First Nations perspectives, sustainability and risk management.
Year 10 students who made climate change films with iPads in Westland National Park showed significantly more positive attitudes to science than a comparison group that stayed in Dunedin.
Auckland primary children who created a one-on-one performance about their city for adults developed deeper understanding, connection and empowerment. Their parents' learning was less clear.
Workshops with wharekura students trialled a Cultural Monitoring plan in ecosystem learning. They proved worthwhile, but understanding core ecological language in te reo Māori was a major challenge.
Teachers of 10–15-year-olds used the outdoors mainly for biology, ecology, pollution and inquiry teaching, and seldom linked outdoor lessons to sustainable development.
An abandoned 1958 car in a forest became a year-long prompt for preschoolers and their nature teachers to explore sustainability together.