Outdoor Education

The outdoors has many benefits to everyone but especially children, and nowadays we are trying to get children outside during school time as much as possible. There is a massive drive for children to be outdoors and connected to nature. This can be seen through ‘Forest Schools’ which has now become a well-known approach in primary schools to get children outdoors.

Louv (2005, p.34) has described “Nature Deficit Disorder” as ‘the human costs of alienation from nature, among them: diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties, and higher rates of physical and emotional illnesses.’ Many children may suffer from “Nature Deficit Disorder” because they do not get enough time to spend in nature or that when they are at home they do not get a chance to go outdoors and play. School is more than likely the only place some children spend time outdoors and Forest Schools has a massive impact on children getting outdoors and having fun. 

Forest schools are providers of outdoor education within a forest type setting through regular visits to the site where sessions would then be taught by trained Forest Schools leaders. (Slade et al., 2013) Throughout the forest school visits it would build on the children’s innate motivation and attitude to learning while also developing an understanding and appreciation of the natural environment. (Davis and Waite, 2005). Although, Forest Schools has been introduced into numerous primary schools throughout the United Kingdom, there are still some worries that there is a decline in the access that some children have to outdoor play and learning. (Louv, 2010) Louv (2010) points out that he believes that childhood obesity has greatly increased over the years and he thinks it is partly due to children not actively engaging in the same level of outdoor physical activity that children from previous generations did. This is due to the wide range of technology that is forever expanding such as the internet and electronic games, it is sad that these are slowly over time going to replace outdoor things that children used to do day in day out such as climbing trees, making dens and playing tag etc. (Louv, 2010)

The Forest Education Initiative (FEI) has supported Forest Schools and has helped to make it popular. The FEI hopes to increase the knowledge and recognition of woodland areas, especially with children, and they also hope to support and help establish Forest Schools throughout the UK. One of Forest Schools most important attributes is that all the learning done throughout it is play based, child initiated, and child led. (Turtle, 2015)

O’Brien (2009) has researched forest schools and she has come up with a similar opinion to Louv (2010) as she has said that there is more of a concern that children are having less contact with the outdoors and do not visit woodlands and greenspaces as much as children from years ago because of the ever-increasing concerns regarding safety and that there are a wider range of indoor activities that are becoming available to children. When children are young it is a time when they should be able to have the most contact with the outdoors. Tovey (2007) believes that the outdoors gives children more opportunities to explore how they want to play and gives them their own level of autonomy. They are able to try various different activities and apply more control and manage their environment due to the absence of strict adult-imposed constraints that oversee indoor activities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmG5HG8A1hc Here is a link to a Youtube video all about Forest School. Take a look to see some children’s opinions on Forest Schools and what they do. One child in the video described Forest Schools as being school outside but that you do not really do work. That just shows that children do not see it as work or that they are learning because it is something fun and they are not sat around a table writing. (Woodland Classroom, 2015)

Children receive different learning experiences from being taught outdoors. They learn differently outdoors sometimes with more enthusiasm and motivation than they do when they are indoors. When children are outside they like to explore different things and most of the time these are things that if they were kept indoors they wouldn’t have the chance to see. For example, they would have the opportunity to search and explore for the little mini-beasts that live in the outdoors and to observe them in their natural environment. (Bilton and James, 2005) If the children get to experience something like this then it wont just impact on them physically because they’ve been outside but it could make their learning better in the classroom for example, if the children have been asked to describe a snail from a picture on the board then they may not be as enthusiastic towards it and not really focused however if they were to have been outside and actually seen the snail in its natural environment and look at it closely then more often than not they are going to be far more engaged in the lesson when you are back in the classroom because they can think back to the experience.

From my own experience with outdoor education and learning in schools I have noticed that the children really enjoy it. For example, in one of my placements in a school year 5 and 6 went on a residential trip for just under a week where they spent most of their time in the outdoors doing various activities such as canoeing, building rafts and loads more. This refers to a point made above by Tovey (2007) and how she said that children have a far wider range of activities that they can take part in when they are outdoors compared to when they are inside. From my personal experience I believe that it is a valid point made by Tovey (2007). They even spent most of their nights outside sitting in a circle toasting marshmallows around the fire. Even though they were not having proper lessons outside they were still learning from being in the outdoors and in nature, but they learnt different things some of which they would not be able to learn in the classroom.

Here is an image from the residential trip that they went on where they were all around the fire singing songs, enjoying themselves while waiting to toast marshmallows. If all children can get to experience something like this then maybe it would get them to love the outdoors because as mentioned above technology is taking over children’s childhood and the more, we can try and get children outside the better.

References

Bilton, H. and James, K. (2005). Learning Outdoors: Improving the Quality of Young Children’s Play Outdoors. Great Britain: David Fulton Publishers

Davis, B. and Waite, S. (2005). Forest schools: An Evaluation of Opportunities and Challenges in Early Years. Plymouth: University of Plymouth

Louv, R. (2005). Last child in the woods. London: Atlantic Books.

Louv, R. (2010). ‘Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder’, in Roberts, L. Museums & Social Issues. London: Routledge, pp. 213-218.

O’Brien, L. (2009). ‘Learning Outdoors: The Forest School approach.’ International Journal of Primary, Elementary and Early Years Education, 37(1), pp. 45-60. doi: 10.1080/03004270802291798

Slade, M., Lowery, C. & Bland, K. (2013). Evaluating the Impact of Forest Schools: A Collaboration between a University and a Primary School. Support for Learning, 28(2), 66-72.

Tovey, H. (2007). Playing Outdoors: Spaces and places, risk and challenge. Maidenhead, England: Open University Press.

Turtle, C., Convery, I. & Convery, K. (2015). Forest Schools and Environmental Attitudes: A Case Study of Children aged 8-11 years. Cogent Education, 2(1) doi: 10.1080/2331186X.2015.1100103

Woodland Classroom. (2015). ‘What is Forest School?’ YouTube. June. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmG5HG8A1hc (Accessed: 19/11/18)