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.
29 items
After a six-week bird-feeding and monitoring project in school grounds, primary children showed gains in knowledge of local birds and in attitudes towards them. The largest gains were for children with little prior nature experience.
A review of international research on learning outside the classroom finds a bias towards hard-to-measure outcomes and weak attention to theory and philosophy.
On a residential science week in a German national park, students felt more competent outdoors, and this appeared to have the biggest impact on their higher intrinsic motivation.
Students in one-semester outdoor education programmes showed gains in self-authorship, which they linked to their instructor and to the outdoor experiences.
Children were more physically active on weekly learning-outside-the-classroom days, but the gain depended on the class that used a nature setting.