Using nature sanctuaries to consider sustainable futures
Interviews with children and young people who visited Zealandia led to three place-based approaches for using nature sanctuaries to enrich sustainability education.
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.
Research library
40 items
Toward a Framework for ʻĀina-Based Pedagogies: A Hawaiʻi Approach to Indigenous Land-Based Education
This article sets out a Hawaiʻi framework for ʻāina-based pedagogies, grounding Indigenous land-based education in ancestral Hawaiian principles.
Ngā Waihotanga Iho: Self-determination through Indigenous environmental education in New Zealand
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.
Narratives of teaching in outdoor and environmental education: what can we learn from a case study of outdoor education pedagogy?
Observing a veteran outdoor educator on camp showed how they drew on a range of teaching strategies, and highlighted place-responsive teaching and pedagogic agility.
Developing a relationship with nature and place: the potential role of forest school
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.
Forest discovery: place relationships on an environmental science, arts and humanities (eSAH) field trip
Pilot data from two high school field trips that combined environmental science, arts and humanities produced a framework for active and passive place relationships.
Lookout for learning: Exploring the links between drama and environmental education pedagogies
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.
The pedagogic moment: Enskilment as another way of being in outdoor education
Ingold's idea of enskilment offers a way to bring together outdoor activity skills and a deeper relationship with place in outdoor education.
Strengthening Identities and Involvement of Aboriginal Children through Learning On Country
An On Country Learning project offers preliminary evidence for the efficacy of learning on Country, based on comparing children's involvement there and in the classroom.
Birds in the playground: Evaluating the effectiveness of an urban environmental education project in enhancing school children’s awareness, knowledge and attitudes towards local wildlife
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.
Becoming a Place-Responsive Practitioner: Exploration of an Alternative Conception of Friluftsliv in the Swedish Physical
A place-responsive approach can enable Swedish physical education teachers to teach friluftsliv in new ways and to work across subjects more locally.
Re-Placing Outdoor Education: Diversity, Inclusion, and the Microadventures of the Everyday
This paper argues that outdoor education's Romantic focus on trips and expeditions has limited inclusion, and that a renewed focus on place and everyday experience could widen its reach.
Cultivating Nature Connection: Instructor Narratives of Urban Outdoor Education
Instructors in a Toronto urban outdoor programme described building children's nature connection as creating space for it, engaging that space, and broadening it.
A Collaborative Community Education Model: Developing Effective School-Community Partnerships
An 18-month pilot in Taupō led to a Collaborative Community Education Model that may serve as a starting point for creating or modifying school-community partnerships.
Mindful Place-Based Education: Mapping the Literature
A literature review argues that combining mindfulness with place-based education may help teachers and students experience place more deeply and think critically about power structures.
Place responsive and culturally responsive outdoor education in secondary schools: Examining teachers' perspectives and experiences
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.