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.
22 items
Students, teachers and therapists co-created MOVEOUT-SPECIAL, a practice guidance for EOTC in special needs schools that recommends contextual, student and educational strategies.
Adding cultural factors to a systems-based risk assessment of a mock led outdoor programme significantly increased the number of risks identified. The authors link this to the Mangatepopo Canyon tragedy.
UK teachers in disadvantaged areas see nature as a calming, freeing space for children but feel that systemic constraints limit outdoor teaching.
Interviews with outdoor learning staff at three UK wetland centres show how Universal Design for Learning (UDL) can guide more accessible and inclusive programmes for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
Outdoor educators are urged to keep questioning whether the comfort zone model and challenge by choice suit every participant.
Interviews with Canadian children and educators, plus a geographical scan with policymakers, point to the interconnected support and buy-in needed at policy, administrator and educator levels for outdoor learning to benefit children.
Educators from an Australian whole-cohort camp and an English programme for excluded students both described outdoor education creating opportunities for belonging and for students to re-engage and rebuild identity.
A pilot analysis of data from the EVOLVE visit-planning system suggests that pupils at schools in the North of England are less likely to take part in residential visits than those in the South, and that provision has not recovered to pre-pandemic levels.
A scoping review of 50 studies found possible benefits of EOtC for children with neurodevelopmental disorders in special education settings, but the overall evidence is weak.
Young women looking back on a month of immersive school outdoor learning in remote New Zealand said it shaped their identity and wellbeing well beyond school.
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.
Universal Design for Learning gives primary teachers a planning framework for making outdoor learning inclusive of every learner in a diverse class.
High school near-peer mentors in outdoor school programmes developed critical consciousness about equity through deliberate training rooted in social justice education.
Instructors rated students' social-emotional skills as improving over an immersive outdoor programme, but they saw larger gains for white students than for students of colour.
Deliberately building fear into adventurous activities can isolate and marginalise students who struggle with it, which challenges the assumption that fear benefits everyone.
Moving a social skills group outdoors several times a week supported autistic students towards their individual education goals and also benefited their special educators.
Friluftsliv teachers' safety strategies both included and excluded students, revealing tension between teaching important winter outdoor skills and keeping friluftsliv inclusive.
Weekly Forest School and outdoor sessions over three years were linked to better attendance and academic attainment for disadvantaged young children. The authors also link emotional learning and wellbeing developed outdoors with academic development.
Underserved students in a technology-integrated environmental education programme reported more confidence and knowledge in using technology outdoors.
Māori students in one secondary school outdoor education programme valued shared experiences and relationships, and making connections with Te Ao Māori through experience, stories of places and history. Affordability, the influence of friends and whānau, and prioritising educational pathways made engaging Māori in outdoor education complex.
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.
The first study of its kind in England found only one in five children experiences a residential each year, and young people in the poorest areas are least likely to go.