Numerous research studies have shown that when teachers take children outdoors to learn, children show an increase in cognitive, physical, social, and emotional skills. Few researchers have focused, however, on teachers and their decision to use the outdoors as a way of teaching. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore whether life experiences impact a teacher's choice to not use the outdoor environment. Ham and Shuman's model of environmental education commitment and Kaplan and Kaplan's environmental cognition theory served as the conceptual frameworks for this study. The research question was designed to explore the experiences and barriers of teachers and how these experiences and barriers affected a teacher's decision to use or not use an outdoor classroom when one was available. Data were obtained using individual interviews of a purposeful sample of seven elementary teachers from a large school district in the U.S. state of Georgia who were not using outdoor classrooms at the time of the study. Themes that emerged from data analysis were lack of time in tightly controlled class schedules, lack of administrator support, lack of staff development for teachers, weather, and lack of time to research and prepare lessons. Study findings have the potential to engender positive social change by increasing insight about the barriers teachers perceive to using the natural environment in instruction. With more knowledge about such barriers, administrators may able to encourage teachers to use the natural environment as an extension of the indoor classroom to increase academic achievement and lifelong behaviors in nature among students.

This work addresses the education of 7–8 years old children in the way of learning science, especially the moment called ”Årstidsväxlingar i naturen” (Seasonal changes in nature) in the curriculum Lgr11 from the ”Core content” and how this subject is taught in a Swedish first grade in primary school. The investigation was aimed to try to find out which methods the teachers are using and what kind of material and technical devises they use, what kind of teaching/learning styles they advocate and how much time they spend for the different moments of teaching in the classroom as well as outdoors. This has been investigated by observation of a first grade class in a Stockholm suburb. The time spent for every moment has been measured and analyzed after notes and sound recordings have been taken. These results are presented in fig. 1–3 where every moment of the classes also is shown. Additional interviews have been conducted with three different teachers, teaching this subject to first graders. The results of these interviews are presented in tab. 1 and appear to be very different from each other. The reasons of these differences are discussed and several hypotheses are proposed.

This investigation explores the meanings primary school teachers who apply outdoor learning and teaching methods associate withthe places that encompass their teaching practices. A symbolic interactionist framework coupled with a social constructionistorientation was employed to analyze data collected from semi-structured interviews and photo elicitation techniques. The findingsillustrated that meaning ascribed to place derived from the interactional processes between the study’s respondents and thephysical setting within which educational interventions occurred. The nature of these interactions also appeared to be highlyinfluenced by the social worlds in which informants participated and their featured social processes. The results elucidated that theattribution of meaning to learning landscapes was impacted by school administrational factors, institutionalized school practices,the respondents’ university education and the perspectives they held about outdoor teaching and learning. Findings from thisenquiry make progress towards gaining an insight into the social construction of meanings ascribed to outdoor learningenvironments. Additionally, they contribute to a theoretical discussion regarding the impact of social contexts encompassingteaching and learning interventions on the educational potential of outdoor places.

This study has been conducted in the context of the master program in Outdoor Environmental Education and Outdoor Life, of Linköping University. It aspires to investigate a specific part of outdoor environments: the schoolyards. Particularly, the aim of the study is to investigate how the use of the school grounds as an educational resource is influenced by their environments -rural or urban. The research compares the school communities’ (principals’, teachers’ and students’) perceptions about the use of their school grounds during the educational process. The research sample consists of 10 Swedish elementary schools, from which the five are in rural and five are in urban environments. The participants are in total 10 principals, 51 teachers and 295 students. Alongside, an observation recorded in a list and photographs enhance the comparison between the rural and urban schools’ infrastructures. From the 1268 photos taken, a selection is included in the study and constitutes the observation part. The study negotiates four controversial issues about school grounds’ capacities: space or place; good or bad; rural or urban; grounds of a school or grounds of a curriculum. The results, after all, reject the contradictions and the sections become respectively: a place for all seasons; neither good nor bad, just unique! ; Ideality stands for ideas; grounds for cooperation. It also becomes visible that even though the analysis of the responses confirms that the urban teachers hold the stereotypical idea that there are differences between rural and urban environments; the infrastructures of both environments do not appear different. However, the teachers’ different opinions and beliefs have a significant impact on the students’ responses. Specifically, significant differences are reported by students which align with the teachers’ differences. The rural and urban principals do not report significant differences, and in the great majority their opinions also align with their teachers’ opinions. Finally, a model which is unfolded through this study has central role, namely the schoolyard circle. This model aims to facilitate a process that I introduce as schoolisization, in which school grounds are used to extend the stereotypical learning environment by adapting the curriculum to a school’s needs. Consequently, the schoolyards’ transformation from a space to our place can be finally proved an outdoor education approach that “bridges contradictions” and promises better educational results.

This creative project explores the principles of permaculture, within the context of environmental sustainability, applying them to the development of the master plan for Camp Goodfellow. Camp Good Fellow is the also known as the Indiana Dunes Environmental Learning Center, part of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore located in northwestern Indiana.This project involves design of an overnight environmental education facility within the Goodfellow site. Permaculture principles are applied to the development of a third camp cluster at Goodfellow, focused on sustainable systems demonstration. This demonstration provides further direction for the existing draft concept master plan and generates typical site details. The project shows how concepts of permaculture can be integrated and oriented towards sustainability education in the northern Indiana landscape. / Department of Landscape Architecture

I denna systematiska litteraturstudie sammanställs forskning om ämnet utomhusmatematik. Insamlingen av datan har skett via sökningar i databasen ERIC (Ebsco) efter vetenskapligt granskade artiklar. Artiklarna har analyserats och resultatet av studien har gett en tydligare inblick av utomhusmatematik, men även om utomhuspedagogik. Det som återkommer är sambandet mellan matematiken och elevernas vardag, att eleverna måste förstå dessa kopplingar för att kunna utvecklas i matematiken. Studien har visat på vikten av elevdelaktighet, problemlösning samt för- respektive nackdelar med utomhusmatematik. Slutsatsen är att förståelsen för sambanden mellan matematikundervisningen och vardagen är viktig, praktisk utomhusmatematik bör förekomma oftare i skolorna samt att variation av undervisning är uppskattat. / This systematic literature review compiles research on the topic "outside mathematics". The collection of data has been made through searches within the database ERIC (Ebsco) for peer-reviewed articles. The articles have been analyzed and the results of the study have given a clearer insight on outdoor mathematics, but also about outdoor education. What recurs is the connection between mathematics and students' daily lives, which students need to understand these linkages to be developed in mathematics. The study has shown the importance of student participation, problem solving, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of outdoor mathematics. The conclusion is that the understanding of the connections between mathematics teaching and everyday life is important, practical outdoor mathematics should occur more frequently in schools, and that the variation of teaching is appreciated.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 2005.

Följande kvalitativa studie beskriver de möjligheter och hinder några pedagoger i skolår 4-6 uppmärksammar med utomhuspedagogik i ämnet engelska, samt de aspekter som dessa pedagoger erfar kan underlätta vid genomförandet av utomhuspedagogik. Utomhuspedagogik innebär att flytta undervisningen utomhus. Genom expectancy-value theory (förväntan-värde teorin) har studien försökt att beskriva och förstå vad dessa möjligheter och hinder kan grundas i. För att besvara forskningsfrågorna har fyra semistrukturerade intervjuer utförts med pedagoger verksamma i årskurs 4-6, dessa pedagoger har varierad mängd erfarenhet vad gäller arbetssättet. Studiens resultat visar att litteraturen inom ämnet i stora drag stämmer överens med de medverkande pedagogernas uttalanden. Positivt gällande möjligheterna är den sociala påverkan som arbetssättet har på elevgruppen. Hindren relaterar till största delen tid för planering samt osäkerhet inför vilket ämnesinnehåll som kan behandlas genom arbetssättet och hur undervisningen kan struktureras. Slutligen, gällande aspekter som kan underlätta vid undervisningen, relaterar dessa till pedagogens erfarenhet, samarbete med andra pedagoger samt kontakt med elevernas hem.

In recent years, mobile devices have become an integral part of our everyday life in various fields. The technology that powers them is used in various devices, such as smartphones, tablets, and PDAs. These devices hold extensive computation capabilities, along with advanced communication abilities, which are supported by an internet connection and diverse types of motion and location sensors. Mobile devices have changed the way people communicate with each other, for example by providing options to send instant text messages, perform live video calls with others in addition to voice conversations. These capabilities have encouraged educators to exploit mobile technology and promote new types of learning options. There are several new learning possibilities based on tools such as mobile dedicated applications, location-based learning activities, and interactive social related tasks. These new uses require adjustments to educational programs to allow support for this type of learning. The uniqueness of mobile learning, in contrast with the classic learning paradigm, is the ability to connect the learner through enhanced learning materials to the outside environment. This breaks the physical borders that exist in the traditional classroom and creates new learning possibilities, but it has its drawbacks. One of the difficulties that arise from this type of learning is the loss of contact in real time between teacher and student, especially when performing outdoor activities. The Treasure-HIT platform was conceived to create outdoor Treasure Hunt-based games, mainly for educational purposes, by introducing an authoring web platform and a supporting mobile application. The platform includes communication capabilities based on social interactions and cooperative learning with the integration of social networks, and yet real-time educator and student communication is still lacking. Adding real-time communication features provides a way to better support ongoing learning activities, and can take pressure off the learning process for the students, by providing them with a more personal experience and immediate support when needed. This thesis follows the process of addressing this concern in TreasureHIT, including the rationale, the background, the possible options and gradual development of a prototype solution to the problem under the existing Treasure-HIT infrastructure. In the thesis, the advantages of two features are explored: (1) the Realtime Group Tracking Map, which provides a way to monitor the movement and action of groups of players during game time, and (2) Instant Text Messaging service, which allows the game instructor to send custom text messages to the different game groups. The research findings indicate that the new monitoring options provide a solid tool for real-time analysis of the progress of the game and the ability to inform about various issues and solve them in real time. ii Furthermore, the instant message service feature received positive responses from the game-manager and players alike, on the grounds of major improvements to the general game flow and problem solving in real-time.

Syftet med denna kunskapsöversikt har varit att ta reda på hur elevens lärande i de naturorienterande ämnena kan påverkas av utomhuspedagogik. Men även effekterna som utomhusundervisning kan ha på eleverna och hur dessa kan påverka det sociala klimatet. För att undersöka detta användes olika metoder, främst sökningar på referensdatabaser. Framförallt utgick sökningarna från Malmö Universitet biblioteks sökfunktion via Libsearch. Relevanta vetenskapliga artiklar och rapporter erhölls, dessa källors referenser har vidare hjälpt till att hitta relevant forskning som har kunnat besvara frågeställningarna. Resultatet visade att det finns flertal positiva effekter på eleverna och deras lärande med utomhuspedagogik. Någon studie visade att det sociala klimatet förbättrades. I jämförande studier mellan inomhus och utomhuspedagogik visade resultaten att kunskapsinlärningen inte utvecklades med någon större skillnad mellan inomhus och utomhusundervisning. Däremot var elevernas upplevelser av utomhusundervisningen mer positiva. Utifrån alla positiva resultat som lyfts fram i denna kunskapsöversikt kanske vår profession uppmuntras till att använda mer utomhuspedagogik i elevernas lärandeprocesser. Med stöd från forskning förespråkas utomhusundervisningen i alla ämnen men främst i de naturvetenskapliga. Detta kan inspirera fler inom professionen att flytta ut från klassrummet och bedriva sin undervisning under bar himmel istället.