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.
211 items
This study reframes digital technology in outdoor education as something learners are entangled with, and suggests video-making can shape outdoor learning in new ways.
After using the PlantNet app outdoors, 5th-grade students named more local plants and showed more biodiversity-related behaviours than before.
Outdoor environmental educators described sharing agency with students and place as complex, ongoing work that disrupts the traditional classroom hierarchy. The authors argue it can be a pathway to empowering students as agents of their own learning.
Connections with others, real responsibilities and genuine challenges in outdoor adventure education appear to support adolescents' psychosocial wellbeing.
Hanging out with peers was the most meaningful activity for youth, and immersion semester high schools produced more meaningful experiences than home, especially emotionally engaging ones.
A school board was ordered to pay more than $500,000 in reparations after a student drowned on a caving trip. WorkSafe found weather triggers, oversight and emergency planning were inadequate.
Edited by AUT's Mike Brown, this book explores the educational side of people's engagement with the ocean and 'blue spaces'. It includes a chapter on surfing and wellbeing in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Māori senior student leaders valued culture and places of significance as integral to their leadership development through a place-responsive programme linked to a Year 9 festival of learning.
In a Year 7 science unit on plants, starting from mātauranga Māori, guided by tikanga and partnership, opened space for students in a superdiverse class to share their own narratives.
This article describes the development of Hui Taurima, a TLIF-funded Year 9 cross-curricular 'Festival of Learning' that puts place and culture at the heart of teaching.
Welsh hill farmers' understanding of 'cynefin', a word tied to one's relationship with place and land, has the potential to provide a counter-pedagogy in keeping with place-based and Indigenous approaches.
Girls at a school that builds outdoor adventure into its curriculum linked their experiences to relationships, perseverance, enjoyment of nature, leadership, confidence and personal growth.
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.
Using the death of Jeremiah Perry on a Toronto school trip as a case, the authors extend the '7 Rights' into '9 Rights' to guide legal literacy and risk management in outdoor education.
Irish outdoor education often looks like a standardised, 'McDonaldized' product, and the authors argue for a more place-based practice.
After a two-week GNS Science GeoCamp in the Wairarapa, 10- to 13-year-olds drew scientists in more varied, realistic ways and less as lab-coated eccentrics.
Outward Bound Trust instructors in the UK saw phone-free experiences as more powerful for young people and valued in-person, in-place interaction over social media.
Māori oral traditions of fire challenge the split between human-centred and nature-centred worldviews, and show the teaching potential of campfires.
Owner/managers of English early childhood settings can lead outdoor practice for infants and toddlers by creating cultural, physical and reflective spaces for their staff.
Three Canadian outdoor education deaths shared administrative failings: undefined risk tolerance, risk creep, weak oversight and problems with parental consent.
Five communities share what they learned while redesigning and using their educational spaces differently to build the wellbeing of students and the wider communities they serve.
NZ high school teachers who led international study tours faced expectations and challenges that affected their lives, and found it hard to balance student safety with adolescents' desire for freedom.
Used together, sit spots, solo wanders, journalling, gathering, story-sharing and nature names enabled relationships with place and the more-than-human world to emerge for children in a Brisbane outdoor programme.
Ethnographic research on an expedition group identified six relational strategies members used to gain or keep status, which led to either social inclusion or exclusion.