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.
356 items
The authors argue that conservation education, including learning about lethal control of introduced animals, supports the values set out in Aotearoa New Zealand's national curriculum.
Teachers who experienced real community during an outdoor education residency tried to create similar community for their own students and schools, though they met obstacles.
An analysis of Australian incident reports found heat and sun illness in led outdoor activities linked to participant, equipment and environmental factors that system-focused approaches could reduce.
Universal Design for Learning gives primary teachers a planning framework for making outdoor learning inclusive of every learner in a diverse class.
A Norwegian primary school's outdoor swimming and water safety week was marked by strong principal support, staff teamwork, experiential learning, challenge by choice and risk awareness.
High school near-peer mentors in outdoor school programmes developed critical consciousness about equity through deliberate training rooted in social justice education.
An updated Natural England evidence briefing reports a substantial body of evidence supporting a positive association between engagement with the natural environment and a diverse range of learning processes and outcomes, including educational, social, developmental and health outcomes.
Interviews with children and young people who visited Zealandia led to three place-based approaches for using nature sanctuaries to enrich sustainability 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.
Wilderness-based professional development boosted teachers' confidence and plans to use experiential methods, but the effect faded over time and confidence did not predict classroom use well.
An outdoor learning experience in a Year 7/8 English writing course in Victoria, Australia was linked to significant gains in students' creative writing.
This article sets out a Hawaiʻi framework for ʻāina-based pedagogies, grounding Indigenous land-based education in ancestral Hawaiian principles.
Deliberately building fear into adventurous activities can isolate and marginalise students who struggle with it, which challenges the assumption that fear benefits everyone.
Canadian elementary teachers named four connected areas that help or hinder outdoor learning: teacher characteristics, systemic factors, culture and the environment. The authors call for systemic support.
Drawing on Dewey and pupils' experiences of learning outside the classroom, this Norwegian study argues that learning activities support deep learning when they involve both transaction and continuity.
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.
Ten weeks of nature-based teaching on placement boosted Turkish preservice early childhood teachers' confidence. The study also names barriers such as family and management attitudes.
Outdoor educators describe time spent travelling to and from trips as a time when students have conversations ranging from silly and fun to deep and introspective.
Moving a social skills group outdoors several times a week supported autistic students towards their individual education goals and also benefited their special educators.
Outward Bound instructors were stressed by unsafe conditions and student behaviour. Taking responsibility for safety, learning and control on themselves made that stress worse, and seeing themselves as failing to meet these demands led to role strain.
US preschool playgrounds scored lowest on challenge, and teachers' average risk tolerance score was 29 out of 100, which points to a need for teacher education about risky play.
Drawing on examples from New Hampshire, Brooklyn, Detroit and Singapore, Hatch argues that sustaining learning outside school depends on understanding what makes unconventional approaches hard to keep going within conventional schools.
This paper sets out a six-week outdoor programme for primary school children that combines trauma-informed practice with outdoor learning to support emotional regulation and wellbeing.
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.