Why learn outdoors?
*In June 2005, the Minister for Education and Young People, Peter Peacock MSP, put outdoor learning firmly on the agenda for Scottish schools by initiating a two-year development programme called Outdoor Connections. It was designed to:
- make connections across current and emerging outdoor education priorities and policies, programmes and people
- research the current state of outdoor education in Scotland for 3-18-year-olds
- develop and distribute resources which will continue to improve the quality of outdoor learning across Scotland.
What is outdoor learning?
Traditionally, outdoor learning has been a combination of adventure and environmental activities often carried on outside school hours and linked to a limited range of subjects, like expressive arts, environmental education and PSE. It was frequently driven by one or more enthusiastic outdoor types on the staff, and as such was unsustainable and often only accessed by a minority of pupils.
Outdoor learning today, and into the future, is much broader. A young person’s progressive experience from 3 to 18 years demands a wide range of outdoor learning activities taking place outside the school. This outdoor classroom can be found in a variety of locations: school grounds, urban spaces, rural or city farms, parks, gardens, woodlands, coasts, outdoor centres, wilderness areas and more. In this context, outdoor education is no longer seen as just adventure or environmental activities, but as a teaching approach outdoors which can enhance and integrate a huge range of activities across the whole curriculum - activities which connect learners with their environment, their community, their society and themselves. It engages and motivates learners through first-hand experiences which demonstrate the relevance of knowledge and understanding.
Curriculum for Excellence outdoors
Curriculum for Excellence recognises that learning is embedded in experience. By taking learning outdoors we remove the barriers that the traditional classroom can put up between young people and first-hand, real-life experiences. Outdoor learning is hands-on and direct, and the knowledge that pupils gain from it is real, first-hand and unforgettable.
'In essence, [the curriculum] must be inclusive, be a stimulus for personal achievement and, through the broadening of pupils’ experience of the world, be an encouragement towards informed and responsible citizenship.' (A Curriculum for Excellence)
While national policy might dictate that young people spending time outdoors is a good thing, and on an instinctive level we might agree, is there evidence to prove it? A wealth of research has been carried out around the world and the results are a resounding endorsement of the benefits of outdoor learning. The National Foundation for Educational Research review of 150 outdoor learning studies worldwide between 1993 and 2003 found evidence that outdoor learning offers an ideal framework for achieving the four capacities:
_tcm4-352994.jpg "Orienteering boy")
Successful learners:
- Outdoor learning develops knowledge and skills in ways that add value to learners’ everyday experiences in the classroom.
- It has a positive impact on long-term memory.
- It reinforces links between the affective and the cognitive, with each influencing the other and providing a bridge to higher order learning.
- It fosters the development of specific academic skills, as well as improved engagement, achievement and stronger motivation to learn.
Confident individuals:
- Outdoor learning impacts positively on young people’s attitudes, beliefs and self-perceptions, for example independence, confidence, self-esteem, locus of control, self-efficacy, personal effectiveness and coping strategies.
- It yields benefits in the promotion of positive behaviour and improved physical self-image and fitness.
Responsible citizens:
- Outdoor learning has a positive effect on social development and greater community involvement.
- It raises learners’ attainment, improves attitudes towards the environment, and creates more positive relationships with each other, with teachers and with the wider community.
- It renews learners’ pride in their community and fosters a greater sense of belonging and responsibility.
Effective contributors:
- Outdoor learning impacts positively on young people’s interpersonal and social skills, such as social effectiveness, communication skills, group cohesion and team work.
_tcm4-353000.jpg "Sunset cycling")
The global perspective
There is increasing agreement by the global society that environmental challenges are at a crisis point, and that these challenges of over-consumption of resources, global population increases and global warming require different lifestyle choices to secure a sustainable future for humanity on the planet. Knowledge and understanding alone do not necessarily motivate people to make these difficult lifestyle choices. The values necessary to equip future generations to meet these challenges can be developed by re-engaging young people with their natural planet through learning outdoors - frequently, throughout their life and in a variety of contexts and settings.
Read how important outdoor learning is in formal education to educate for a sustainable future in the Scottish Executive report Learning for our Future.
What now?
It's easier than you might think to take learning outdoors. Read all about the imaginative outdoor projects going on in schools around Scotland today.