Exploring Schools’ Use of Natural Spaces

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the changing ways in which schools are using natural spaces as part of their pupils' learning experience. We suggest that learning in natural spaces has undergone something of a renaissance in recent times, and explore the reasons that this might be so. We then examine ways in which schools and other practitioners are using outdoor spaces for play, for non-curricular and for curricular learning. The chapter draws on a range of countries for examples that show how a nation's cultural ideas about the outdoors can be incorporated into a country's outdoor learning, and how other ideas travel across boundaries to be interpreted in different practical ways. Within these sections, we consider different theoretical underpinnings that inform learning outside. Finally, the benefits of and challenges to outdoor learning are considered. of the conflict between 'short-term capitalist exploitation of natural resources and longer-term sustainable production' (Eagleton, 2011, p.229). Abstract desire for the bucolic, however, was followed by action of a more practical nature. During the late nineteenth century, for instance, the establishment of National Parks in the US and Australia encouraged and protected both people's engagement with the natural world and the wildlife within it, and provided a model that is followed by a large number of countries today. This type of conservation work has subsequently been developed and augmented into a wide-ranging social and political environmental movement that includes international and local organisations, political parties, scientists and individual advocates. And over the last fifteen years or so, it has been possible to see a parallel process of increased awareness of and advocacy for the value of the natural world within the education sector, whereby children and young people's diminishing engagement with the natural world (e.g. Louv, 2008) has led to something of a renaissance in the use of outdoor spaces for teaching and learning among different nations across the globe. In this chapter we discuss why this may be so, the ways in which teachers and other practitioners who educate pupils up to the age of sixteen are using the outdoor environment, and the different effects this has. We present research on outdoor learning from different nations to illustrate different debates, and describe briefly our own contribution to this body of work through the Natural Connections Demonstration Project. Finally, we bring the chapter to a close with a range of recommendations for the future. Our discussion includes all aspects of learning outside the classroom in the natural environment such as adventure education, curricular learning outdoors in a variety of settings such as school grounds or national parks, and more informal types of learning that might take place in, for example, other outdoor activities and / or residential settings. 2. Patterns of change-why a renaissance of learning in the natural environment? Learning in the natural environment for children follows a...

Outdoor learning spaces: The case of forest school

“…This paper adds to the growing literature on the way spaces are used by educators, including the increased use of informal and outdoor learning spaces among younger primary children (Gilchrist et al, 2016). Forest school is a practice sometimes described as "alternative education", but it is increasingly incorporated into mainstream school activities despite not being part of the national curriculum.…”

Transition from Preschool to School in Relation to the Implementation of Educational Activities Outdoors

“…Medosebni nivo so navedli tudi drugi raziskovalci (npr. Gilchrist, Passy, Waite in Cook, 2016), ki so poudarek namenili komunikacijskim spretnostim, vodenju in delu v skupini. Omenjeni raziskovalci (prav tam) so prednosti tudi umestili v štiri skupine, le da jih drugače poimenujejo in se bolj osredinjajo na šolsko situacijo.…”

“…Omenili smo tudi prednosti na konativnem ali afektivnem področju: npr. razvoj odnosov, vrednot ter na fizičnem: zdravje, počutje ipd., to bi lahko poimenovali znotrajosebni nivo, ki ga izpostavljajo omenjeni raziskovalci (Gilchrist, Passy, Waite in Cook, 2016). Različna grupiranja in poimenovanja skupin prednosti dela v naravi kažejo, da so raziskave pokazale na pozitivni vpliv učenja in pouka v naravnem okolju na različnih področjih.…”

‘We call this “play”, however…’: Navigating ‘play anxiety’ in early childhood education and care markets

“…In reaction to the risk aversiveness of contemporary English ECEC provision, there has emerged a small but significant countercultural embrace of risky play led by the progressive Forest Schools movement (Connolly and Haughton, 2017; Gilchrist et al, 2017; Leather, 2018). This movement emphasises the role of outdoor education year-round – in all weather – for developing resilient, resourceful and creative children.…”

“…In this approach, children are taught to assess their own comfort with the riskiness of an activity. While Forest Schools have become more popular in England, they have been criticised for being implemented differently across different nations (Gilchrist et al, 2017; Leather, 2018). Scandinavian nations, where Forest Schools originated, have been widely successful in implementing a risk-embracing Forest School approach, while British educational institutions have continued to be cautious in their implementation.…”