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.
40 items
An outdoor learning experience in a Year 7/8 English writing course in Victoria, Australia was linked to significant gains in students' creative writing.
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.
Pilot data from two high school field trips that combined environmental science, arts and humanities produced a framework for active and passive place relationships.
English primary teachers kept valuing outdoor learning from 1995 to 2017 despite curriculum reform and performativity pressures. They used their own space as curriculum makers to keep it going.
The paper argues that a models-based approach to teaching adventurous activities in physical education offers the best opportunity to fully realise their contribution to students' learning.
In three Welsh primary schools, regular curriculum-based outdoor learning was seen to improve pupils' engagement, concentration, behaviour and wellbeing. Curriculum and testing pressures held it back.
English primary senior leaders value outdoor and adventurous activities highly but interpret them in very different ways, and they say the national curriculum offers little guidance.
The author argues that school-based friluftsliv in Sweden's PE and health curriculum is dominated by a conservative, activity-based approach that is out of step with global issues such as climate change.
Surveys of English primary teachers in 1995 and 2017 showed the same barriers of time and cost, less teacher expertise, and clear ingredients for successful outdoor learning.
Primary teachers value outdoor science for studying nature 'for real' and lifting interest, but describe little science content and face organisational and cost barriers.
A short park visit built on a German teaching programme improved Brazilian students' attitudes, emotions and biological understanding about invertebrates compared with a control group.
Results suggest two adventure-based PE programmes both benefited middle school students' self-conceptions over seven months, with each working best for different aspects of self-concept.
A large Hungarian survey found that primary schools value out-of-school learning and want more of it, but cost and fitting it into the syllabus hold them back.
Two kindergarten teachers used one authentic multimodal text before, during and after a zoo trip to build children's scientific literacy and their identity as 'scientists'.
A place-responsive approach can enable Swedish physical education teachers to teach friluftsliv in new ways and to work across subjects more locally.
Secondary teachers adopting place-responsive and culturally responsive outdoor education faced challenges, including colleagues' views of the subject and the complexities of senior assessment. The approaches also created opportunities for curriculum alignment, holistic development and cultural diversity.