Adventurous Play & Outdoor Learning

One of the project’s priorities is to enhance the learning capacities and wellbeing of primary school children (including low achievers, children with different learning abilities and barriers to learning, etc.). Children learn best through ‘active learning’ which involves all senses, not just listening and reading. Once children reach primary school, they move into a system where passive listening and worksheets are the norm. This traditional teaching style works for some children, but it leaves behind many others who absorb knowledge and skills in a different manner. Outdoor learning through unstructured adventurous play provides the unique opportunity for experiential, active learning. It also meets the needs of all children by accommodating different learning styles, rendering the education more inclusive for all children. Overall, it is now well accepted that risky – also known as ‘adventurous’ - play is necessary in order to develop risk-taking skills and to obtain risk competence. Depriving children from age-adequate risk play will hinder normal child development and is being associated with the development of fear and dislike of the environment. Outdoor spaces, and preferably natural environments, offer the greatest opportunity for children to engage in risk-taking behaviour and adventurous play. Natural environments also have restorative qualities that help in coping with everyday stress and support creativity, learning and education. In addition, spending time in nature as a child nurtures lifelong positive attitudes about nature and the wider environment. Recent studies are also overwhelmingly pointing to the advantages of exposure to natural environments within the school context on children’s concentration and eagerness to learn, effectively narrowing the educational gap. Inequality in learning is an urgent issue, severely impacting on individual children’s life chances, and economies and societies around the world. There is growing evidence that learning through active (adventurous) play in the outdoors may present a solution to this problem of inequality. Many studies demonstrate the benefits of learning through play, especially for early brain development – these include social, emotional, cognitive and physical benefits. Yet the value and potential of learning through play is still not recognised widely enough. Teachers are asked to plan responsively and adopt a whole new teaching style, supporting the independent exploration and risky play of children in the outdoor environment. Research demonstrates how challenging this is and how many concerns this raises among teachers. More and more, schools and teachers are looking for guidance and support to incorporate more experiential learning styles in the outdoors. This project aims to meet that need by creating and offering a range of resources, delivering workshops, and by sharing best practices from partner countries in order to develop new skills, methods and practical know-how for teachers and other relevant stakeholders to facilitate learning and adventurous play outdoors.