Outdoor education is learning IN the outdoors, not necessarily about the outdoors
Just being outdoors can provide unique academic, mental, social, and physical benefits. In fact, there’s a growing body of research that supports outdoor instruction. Getting kids outdoors, frequently in nearby nature, is a large part of the Minnesota Children’s Outdoor Bill of Rights.
The outdoors provides a multi-sensory experience with invaluable teachable moments. There is no app for that!
Practice makes perfect (or progress). The more you teach outdoors, the more comfortable you'll become. And you can certainly teach about the outdoors, too!
Step 1: Explore your space and curriculum.
Overcome the fear of the unknown by getting to know your outdoor spaces.
Use the outdoors as an alternative classroom. Get to know it.
Tag parts of your curriculum that could be done outdoors. Remember, outdoor classrooms are for much more than science. Use them for morning meetings, end-of-day reviews, math, physical education, art, music, language arts, and social studies too!
Walk to the site, without students. Do this before the school year begins, on a weekend, or after classes. Repeat when the season changes.
Note which door allows best access. Also note where the restrooms are in relation to the door. (You’ll want to enforce a bathroom break before going outside.) Bring your lanyard and ID so you can return indoors. If you don’t know the names of plants, bring an adult who does.
Tip: Establish an “outdoor classroom door” that is different from the “recess door.”Note how long it takes to move from the door to the outdoor gathering space.
Look for a good place to establish an outdoor classroom space, the starting point for future outdoor learning. This space and its access trail should be large enough to accommodate your class. It should be protected from strong winds and hot sun (next to a building or grove of conifers) and somewhat quiet (away from busy roads and noisy playgrounds). You may have more than one appropriate outdoor gathering spaces. If there are no benches or tables, is there space for students to use their sit-upons?
Look for natural boundary lines. You can use sidewalks, trails, a large tree, flagpole, side of a building, and other natural boundary lines to keep your class within a certain area.
Look for distractions and plan to avoid them. Distractions include noisy traffic, playground, or a neighbor’s yard with a barking dog.
Look for risks and hazards. Note and avoid those areas. Ask facilities personnel to remove hazards such as large dead branches (aka “widow makers”), hazardous garbage, or poison ivy. Risks are a different matter. Determine your tolerance for engaging with risks. Are you OK allowing responsible students to climb on downed logs, dip their hands in the pond, pick up large sticks, or scramble into a ravine? Remember, risks and hazards exist everywhere, including indoors.
Look for engaging spots such as large burly oaks, streams, interesting plants, nests, hollow trees, or moss-covered boulders. If you’re lucky, you may have a grove of strong trees growing relatively close together for hammocking! Students will be naturally drawn to these places, so look for opportunities to use them.
Walk back to the building the same way you would with students. Is there a place for students to stomp off mud or snow before heading indoors? How will students hang up wet gear? Note what you have or need.
Sketch out a map of your findings! If your school has a school forest, there may already exist a trail map of the area. Contact your school leadership or the School Forest Program staff.
Finally, announce your intentions. Tell your principal, superintendent, colleagues, and parents that you wish to teach outdoors and why. Advocates are out there!
Next Step: Head outdoors with students!
Step 2: Head outdoors with your students.
Congratulations on extending your instruction outdoors! Here’s how to take that first step.
You may want to bring an extra adult or two the first time out with students.
Tell students that you are going to use the “outdoor classroom.” Words matter. This is not recess!
Review your outdoor rules as a class. Then use positive reinforcement to reward the behavior you want them to exhibit while outside.
Plan a simple lesson or activity for the first time out, such as a scavenger hunt, adjective hunt, or a measuring challenge. Use as few tools as possible. Often all students need is a clipboard and pencil. Journals are flexible tools too.
As students become more comfortable with the outdoor rules, you can plan more complicated lessons.
Read one northern Minnesota teacher's story about how he went from nervous to comfortable.
Outdoor rules
Ask students the rules they already know for behaving indoors. Should those rules change when outdoors? (No!)
Depending on the age of your students you might write or draw the steps for moving into the outdoor classroom. Time your students to challenge them to get outside efficiently and quietly.
Six techniques to get students outside efficiently
Line up by the classroom door.
Use the restrooms.
Meet by the cubbies.
Put on snowsuit or snowpants, boots, coat, hat, mittens, in that order
Line up by the door to the outdoors.
Follow the leader to the outdoor classroom.
If you have very young children bring along another adult to deal with unanticipated bathroom needs.
Additional outdoor rules to practice with your students
You need to be able to see me at all times.
Stay with the group or stay with your buddy or small group.
One whistle means “stop, listen for instructions.”
Two whistles mean “stop, clean up, and return to me NOW.”
Sticks may be no longer than your arm, and they may not touch other people’s sticks. If anyone forgets, everyone will put down their stick and we’ll try again tomorrow.
Respect nature. Take samples respectfully. Pick one leaf, not a whole branch. Collect items no bigger than the palm of your hand. Put things back where you found them. Clean up after yourself.
If you see garbage, pick it up and put it in our trash bag. Don’t pick up things that are sharp, just tell me about it.
Boundaries
Everyone must stay on this side of the grandmother oak and go no further than the sidewalk!
Set boundaries as necessary and make sure all students know them. For younger students, you may choose to create visible boundaries with orange flagging tape or traffic cones. Toddlers and preschoolers might hold a long rope as you lead them.
Sometimes students might be spread throughout a part of the forest, and you may prefer to be able to observe all students from one spot. Position yourself on high ground to better see your class.
As you and your class get more comfortable learning outdoors, you might let them out of sight with the agreement that they will all return to you as soon as they hear your whistle.
Expectations and focus
Remind students why they’re going outdoors.
You will have 15 minutes to observe and brainstorm 20 adjectives, 20 nouns, and 20 verbs.
You and your partner need to collect 5 soil samples and return to me when you hear two whistles.
Our class will play a camouflage game and learn new vocabulary for our word bank.
We will do quiet reading in our hammocks for 30 minutes.
Plan ahead consequences for misbehavior. Will you have the child be your assistant to keep him close to you? Are you willing to end the entire lesson and return to the building at the first infraction? Will you send a child back with a second adult? Will you use a stump for time-out? While it’s good to plan ahead, you may be surprised how well children actually behave outdoors.
Engage students' senses to explore objects. If discussing cattails, make sure each student can touch, see, and smell one. Only allow students to taste items when you are absolutely sure it is safe.
Ask open-ended questions that encourage students to make their own discoveries. It’s ok if you don’t know the answer! The class can look it up later.
Have students reflect on the outdoor experience. Focus on the new lessons learned and the positive experiences.
Your outdoor setting
“The environment is the third teacher.” – Reggio teaching philosophy
Setting influences learning. Indoor classrooms have posters, books, desks, and bins of equipment that influence learning. Outdoor learning areas have trees, shrubs, sticks, leaves, snow, water, puddles, wind, birdsong, scents, textures, shapes, and colors, all of which influence learning and engage the senses.
Bring out some clipboards, pencils, and sit-upons, and you have an instant classroom!
Know what’s in your outdoor learning areas. What’s there or not there? How long does it take to get there? Your campus may have one or more spaces on its grounds suitable for outdoor instruction. You’ll never know until you look for them.
- An urban schoolyard
- Near water or ice
- Forest or woodlot
- In a park
- Your school forest
- Your yard
Can leadership and facilities staff enhance your schoolyard? Ideas include installing a whiteboard on a wall outside your building, adding a circle of benches, cordoning off areas to NOT mow, planting shrubs and trees, feeding birds and wildlife, etc. Consider applying for a No Child Left Inside grant to pay for outdoor enhancements, tools, or educator professional development.
Barriers and solutions
Teachers report common barriers taking classes outdoors. Learn how other Minnesota teachers tackle them.
My class periods are only 45 minutes long. How do I get a whole class outside and back in time?
Establish a Routine: If you make outdoor instruction part of your routine, students will learn how to move and dress/undress quickly. Students may be slow at first. Teach younger students how to put on snowpants, jackets, boots, and mittens in that order. Older students quickly learn that less dawdling means more time outside.
Consider setting a specific day or two each week for outdoor instruction. When students know that they need to go outdoors every Friday, they will be more prepared.
High School: High school teachers might ask another teacher to let them keep students for two consecutive periods in exchange for the other teacher getting two consecutive periods the following week.
I feel like I’m the only teacher at my school who wants to teach outdoors.
We can all inspire, support, and encourage other teachers by acknowledging their concerns and offering solutions.
- Bring up your intentions at a staff meeting. You may be surprised to find other teachers may want to join you!
- Invite another class (with their teacher) to join your class outdoors to do a project, play a standards-based movement activity or buddy-teach children on a nature hike or scavenger hunt.
- Ask leadership to host a staff training on outdoor teaching opportunities at your school.
- Introduce the benefits of outdoor instruction to teachers and students at your school’s wellness committee.
Lead by example
If you are “that teacher,” lead by example!
Four ways to lead
- Demonstrate polite hallway etiquette. Teach students how to dress and move quickly and quietly through the hallway without disturbing other classes. Teach students to stomp mud or snow off their boots before heading indoors.
- Show off student work done outdoors in public areas. Post nature-inspired poetry in the hallway. Display in the media center sculptures that students made from materials they collected in the woods.
- Create a treasure table in your classroom of interesting finds, including printed photos.
- Post photos or videos of your students learning outside for other teachers to see. Use your school's teacher web portal or post in a communal space such as in the teacher's lounge.
Ideas to motivate others
- Invite a naturalist or teacher with experience teaching outdoors to spend a few hours with your staff.
- If you have a registered school forest, you can get a free school forest training. These site-specific workshops deliver what you ask for, whether it’s outdoor classroom management skills, lessons to do outside, or research-based justifications.
- Provide grab-and-go activities with all the necessary lesson plans and materials so teachers can easily plan them into their curriculum. Straight-forward, simple lessons can be helpful for teachers new to outdoor teaching.
- Lead staff on an after-school school ground stroll or hold walking meetings outdoors. This helps familiarize teachers with their site and increases comfort.
- Ask administration to support and promote outdoor teaching and curriculum development.
- Advocate for an easily accessible supply closet so that all teachers can access extra hats, mud boots, mittens, clipboards, bug spray, sunscreen, etc.
- Draw a map and write a trail guide. Do it yourself, make it a project for students, or hire a writer. Mark specific features on the map such as plants, animal homes, or geological features. Share the map on the school website, post it at a trail entrance, or have students create a large wall poster.
My principal tells me I need to focus on standards and testing.
We’re too busy with the Minnesota Reads Act requirements (or other initiative that inevitably pops up).
Administrators and principals often respond well to data and results.
Key things to communicate
- You are teaching standards-based lessons. The only change is the setting.
- Research shows that being outdoors can raise test scores, reduce absenteeism, enhance social skills, and improve physical health of both students and teachers. Share the research-based infographics from the Children and Nature Network
- Studies are showing that schools that include outdoor instruction increase enrollment and bring in more per-pupil funding. Also, parents want it! How Green Schoolyards Create Economic Value
- Children have a right to experience the outdoors, frequently and nearby. The Minnesota Children’s Outdoor Bill of Rights explains how Minnesotans should expect access to inclusive outdoor spaces, connect to the outdoors, and participate in environmental education
We have no nature. All we have is mowed lawn and ballfields.
Nature persists
Nature often persists along in the margins of the schoolgrounds or may be accessed via a short walk. You just need to find it first. Look for places that are protected from hot sun or strong winds (next to a building, behind a shed, or in a grove of conifers), somewhat quiet, and appropriate for the lesson you want to teach.
Even if your schoolyard has “no nature,” it is still open to the elements. Students can observe, measure, and write about sun, shadows, wind, water, weather, sounds, smells, ants in the sidewalk, and other surprises nature may throw your way. With a clipboard, sit-upon, and a pencil, students can read, draw, write stories and poems, and do worksheets. All while getting a mental health break from just a change in setting.
Improve your site
Ask leadership and facilities staff to enhance your schoolyard. Ideas include installing a whiteboard on a wall outside your building, adding a circle of benches, cordoning off areas to NOT mow, planting shrubs and trees, feeding birds and wildlife, etc. Ideas for outdoor features. Ideas for urban sites. Funding may be available using No Child Left Inside grants.
Adult comfort
A picnic table in the shade can be a game changer for adults who are uncomfortable bending over to access materials on the ground. A waste container near the door used to enter the schoolyard is also helpful.
You don’t need to teach about nature. Just teach IN nature.
Move an indoor standards-based lesson outdoors
Try moving a standards-based indoor lesson that you’re already doing and adjust it for an outdoor setting. Or you can choose to swap out a boring lesson for a more engaging, outdoor one that still meets standards. This takes time, so start slow. Aim for swapping out one lesson a month.
How the outdoors can improve academic outcomes – research infographic
Outdoor education should not be an add-on
Not all outdoor lessons need to be about the environment. Examples include quiet reading time, doing math worksheets, measuring shadow length, or playing a predator/prey game. Other lessons produce better results when done outdoors, such as writing poetry, storytelling, meditation, measuring tree circumference, and collecting/sorting/identifying leaves. For example, if your lesson is simply reading Hatchet, To Kill a Mockingbird, or Lord of the Flies, your students may engage in richer discussions or note-taking inspired by the setting around them.
Try these lessons
This website also contains several links and ideas for additional environment-based lessons available for Minnesota teachers.
This Minnesota-based group focuses on getting children outdoors to love nature, helping you teach and inspire in the outdoor classroom, and environmental stewardship through education.
General guidance for taking students outdoors, including:
- choosing a study site
- managing time, space, students, and materials general teaching strategies
Minnesota Reads Act -outdoors
The Minnesota Legislature adopted and passed the Minnesota Reads Act on July 1, 2024. The goal of the act is to get all children to read at or above grade level using techniques based in valid, replicable science.
The research-based consensus is that teaching reading is like building muscle: practice, practice, practice! Provide lots of books and a place to read. Why not bring reading practice outside?
What if a child runs off or gets hurt?
You know your class. Not all classes can handle outdoor instruction right away. Trust your judgment and take small steps at first. Most kids come to love their time in outdoor settings. Many teachers report that the kids who cause trouble indoors seem to undergo a positive behavior change once they’re outdoors on a task. If you have students with special needs, ask for adult help.
- Let the front office know when you’re taking a class outdoors.
- Know which students have medical needs and make sure they bring any necessary medications (inhaler, EpiPen, etc.).
- Do frequent head counts or create a way to know that everyone is there: before you leave the school, when you arrive at the forest, before you leave the forest, and when you get back.
I don’t know the names of any plants! What if there’s poison ivy? What risks and hazards are out there?
Fear of the unknown is real. If you don’t know what’s out there, explore the space on your own without students.
Remember, you don’t need to know about everything outdoors. Authentic learning happens when students discover a phenomenon and the class learns more about it together using a field guide or other instructional tool.
- Before heading outdoors with students, scope out the area ahead of time. Know where the risks and hazards are and how to deal with them.
- Ask facilities staff or other adults to remove true hazards, such as offensive graffiti, needles, or broken glass. If human-created hazards return, report every incident to the police to create a pattern for future law enforcement.
Unsafe plants and animals
Unlike many other places, Minnesota has relatively fewer plants and animals that can cause problems.
Plants and animals to be aware of
If any of these plants or animals are in your outdoor areas, take steps to address them
- Poison ivy – This native plant has a lot of positive benefits for wildlife. But some humans can break out in painful rashes upon contact. It’s best to learn what it looks like and avoid it, including during the winter. Teach older students how to identify it too.
- Wild parsnip – Contact with this non-native plant can cause skin rashes. Avoid it.
- Stinging insects – Bees, hoverflies, and other plant-loving insects are helpful pollinators and fascinating to observe. Many wasps and hornets predate on other insects such as mosquitoes and help balance the population of agricultural pests. Most insects are not aggressive and only sting when disturbed. Teach students how to respect insects. If stung, send the child to the nurse. Most painful stings go away relatively quickly. However, know which students are allergic to bee/wasp stings and bring an epi-pen.
- Ticks – If you’re worried about tick bites, make sure to tell students and their families to check themselves for ticks before going to bed. Getting a disease from a deer tick bite is small if it’s removed soon after being attached. Naturalists have made a game from finding ticks on students by collecting ticks and sticking them to a long piece of Scotch tape. Collecting ticks to study can turn “ick” into “wow!”
- Dogs – Unleashed dogs can be unpredictable. Tell the owner to leash their pet. Leashed dogs can also be unpredictable, especially when swarmed by a group of eye-level children.
- Children – Intentionally or unintentionally, children can harm or kill our plant and animal friends. Teach children how to respect nature and leave things the way they found them.
There’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing. – Generations of Minnesota parents
Extending your forays beyond the pleasant months of October and May can offer a variety of teachable moments! Your students (and parents) will thank you.
Teaching in winter
Winter is a great time to build vocabulary, measure temperatures, observe wildlife signs, read and follow maps, engineer snow structures, study indigenous cultures, and practice physics (sledding, sliding).
- Engage one of Minnesota’s oldest traditions: storytelling over a small fire. Try Dakota or Ojibwe stories or books from our recommended reading list.
- Keep moving! We stay warmer in the winter with movement. If you sense kids getting too cold, encourage a quick movement break. Jumping jacks, wiggle time, jump-roping are all great ways to warm up.
Ice safety – learn the facts and determine what you will tolerate
Outdoor clothes and footwear: parent help needed
At the beginning of the school year, tell families that you expect their children to arrive at school prepared to learn outdoors. Routines help. For example, you may be taking kids outside the first Friday of each month or other schedule. You may still need to remind parents the day before each trip.
Appropriate clothing and shoes help children learn. Consider asking parents to let the student store outdoor gear at school so it will always be on hand. Sample family letter on dressing appropriately
Over time, establish a class set of extra outdoor clothing from the school's lost and found, donations, grants, or thrift stores. This comes in handy if you have forgetful students, serve families who can’t afford proper outdoor clothing, or are new to our climate. Some schools have applied for grants to provide class sets of boots, snowpants, and waterproof mittens.
Winter clothing list: Snowsuit or snow pants, winter coat, water-resistant mittens, hat, warm/waterproof boots.
Muddy season clothing list: Rain boots, raincoat, or poncho (don’t use umbrellas), hood or hats with a brim.
Warm season clothing list: Hat with a brim, closed-toe shoes (no flip-flops!) especially if in a forest/prairie. Ask families permission before using bug spray or sunscreen.
Practical outdoor classroom management tips
The following tips have been compiled from generations of outdoor educators. Use what works for you!
Sunglasses inhibit eye contact with your audience and should be avoided when speaking to a group.
Face yourself toward the sun. This keeps the sun at your students' backs and will help them keep their attention on you.
When leading the group on a trail, lead half of the students past the object you want to talk about. Stop, then go back and stand in the middle of the group so that everyone can hear you and see the object. Wait for everyone to arrive before beginning your discussion.
Remind the class that they will be walking together as a group. Make sure no one is getting left behind or running ahead. If you have a volunteer adult, have them head up the back of the group when walking down a trail.
When it's hot outside, gather in shaded areas. In colder conditions, try to stand out of the wind and where the sun is at their backs to help keep them warm.
Expect teachable moments. If your lesson is about observing macroinvertebrates in a pond and suddenly a flock of pelicans appears overhead, it’s OK to pause your lesson, observe the birds, and discuss whatever questions the students ask.
Use a focusing tool. Drape a rope or hula hoop around an object, use a laser pointer, or provide magnifying lenses or binoculars. Other popular focusing tools include small sand pails or clear plastic baggies for collecting small objects, ice cube trays for collecting live macroinvertebrates, paper plates or frisbees for collecting/sorting/labeling objects, or an old shower curtain with pre-drawn grid lines for an “instant chart.”
Have a question, objects to spot, or hidden objects to find. Many a naturalist has sparked intrigue in even the most jaded students by “planting” interesting objects such as skulls, feathers, or shells along a trail. Hiding camouflaged stuffed animals, pictures of birds, or painted rocks with words are also popular. Talk about these things along the way or tell students to be ready to answer questions when you arrive at your location.
- Watch outdoor instruction in action. 6-minute videos from the Jeffers Foundation.
- Why Outside – watch children and their teachers as they learn outside in urban and more natural environments
- Preparing for Success – watch how teachers prepare and teach outdoors
- Making it Real – video highlights the advantages of outdoor learning
Tools for outdoor instruction
We’ll let you in on a little secret. You don’t actually need a lot of tools to teach outside. Often all you need is a clipboard and pencil for each student. You should also bring a cell phone to connect to home base in case of emergencies.
Experienced outdoor educators recommend these tools. Choose what works for you!
Knowledge: A little knowledge keeps your class safe. Know which kids have allergies and bring an epi-pen. Avoid hazardous areas near poison ivy, broken glass, traffic, or loud noises that inhibit students’ ability to hear you.
Clipboards & Pencils: A class set of clipboards and pencils is essential. Pencils work in all temperatures (pens with ink can freeze).
Whistle: You need a way to call students back to home base. If you can't whistle, use a gym teacher's whistle or a loud bird call (turkey, duck, goose). Or teach students a wolf howl call and response.
Wagons or sleds: Invest in a few wagons and/or sleds for transporting materials to your School Forest or outdoor classroom. High-sided ice-fishing sleds work better than children's toboggans.
Sit-upons: A class set of sit-upons may calm students who may be nervous sitting outdoors. Sit-upons can be made from old yoga mats, swimming kickboards, garden kneelers, or even old newspapers inserted into a large plastic baggie. How to make a sit-upon.
Safety vests and hats: A class set of bright-colored vests or hats can help you keep track of your students' locations outdoors.
Flagging tape or traffic cones: Some teachers feel more comfortable if they can mark clear boundaries for their students. You can set bright-colored tape or cones to denote where you want students to be.
Sidewalk chalk: Draw word banks, tally marks, Venn diagrams, charts, graphs, and flow charts.
Ropes: Preschoolers can hold onto a long rope lead by a teacher. Ropes can also be used for measuring perimeters, marking field plots, or engineering survival shelters.
Activity kits: Create grab-and-go activity kits that teachers can use outdoors. Each kit should contain teacher instructions, student instructions, student worksheets (if needed), and all the materials needed to do the lesson. Common activities may include measuring tree circumference or height, journaling, soil studies, poetry, sensory lessons, water and macroinvertebrate studies, or wildlife studies.
Ideas for outdoor instruction tool closet: Collect class sets of:
- Rain boots (child-sized)
- Compasses
- Magnifying lenses
- Binoculars
- Rain ponchos (child-sized)
- Snowshoes (child-sized)
- Field desks – how to make
- Blank writing journals
- Measuring tapes
- Rulers
- Air, water, soil thermometers
- Field guides or laminated ID sheets
- Collection containers
- Tablets or digital cameras for taking photos
A note about organizing your tools
If you can’t find it when you need it, you don’t have it.
- Create a go-bag or wagon of supplies. Store them by the door.
- Create a wall of hooks for tools such as field desks or bug nets. The hooks can also be used for drying outdoor gear. Teach students to hang their wet clothes efficiently.
- Organize your tools after every use right away.
- Create and label bins for your tools. Teach students to put items away appropriately.
Research supporting outdoor instruction
A wide variety of research supports teaching and learning outdoors. Regular outdoor instruction can improve academic outcomes in core subjects such as reading and math, reduce absenteeism, retain teaching staff, attract families to schools, improve physical and mental health, and reduce behavior problems.
Share the evidence with families, school administrators, and funders.
Gathers research that support children being outdoors.
Research summaries and full papers
Infographics
Flourishing in Nature Research Briefs (University of Minnesota). Eleven one-page briefs investigate the impact of nature with young (preschool) learners:
A one-pager of six important takeaways on outdoor education and school performance, student health, child development, etc.
How the outdoors affects children’s physical, mental, social, and academic health.
Use the search tool to find reports on environmental education variables such as student ages, developmental outcomes, education, human health, and social/environmental justice.
Resources and guidance from the Minnesota Department of Education
Inspiration for educators
Improving your outdoor teaching skills is a life-long process. Start small or go long!
- Read an article about how taking students outside help students with special needs
- Watch a video: "Five reasons you should take your class outside" by Sir Ken Robinson, British author and international advisor on education to governments and non-profits.
- Boost your bookshelf. Books to inspire educators who teach outdoors
- Attend a Jeffers Foundation workshop. These low-cost workshops walk you through standards-based lessons designed for the outdoors.
- Get a teaching certificate on nature-based education from Hamline University
Featured research
Do Experiences With Nature Promote Learning? Converging Evidence of a Cause-and-Effect Relationship – This paper by leading education researchers Drs. Frances Ming Kuo, Michael Barnes, and Catherine Jordan provides synopses of how outdoor experiences affect learning.
Excerpts
| We now know that... | How this advance came about and why it matters |
|---|---|
| Nature-based instruction (NBI) is, on average, more effective than traditional instruction (TI). | Early research often compared outcomes before and after NBI, showing that students benefitted from nature-based instruction but not whether there was anything particularly helpful about NBI as compared to any other instruction. More recently, studies have begun comparing outcomes for NBI vs. TI, showing that incorporating nature adds value to instruction (e.g., Ernst and Stanek, 2006; Camasao and Jagannathan, 2018). |
| The advantage of NBI or TI does not simply reflect a tendency for better teacher, better schools, or better students to choose NBI. | Early research often compared learning in classrooms offering NBI vs. matched classrooms offering TI. But matching does not address the likelihood that teachers (or schools) who choose to offer NBI may be more innovative, energetic, or well-funded than teachers (or schools) who do not, even if they serve similar students. Similarly, comparisons of students who choose extracurricular NBI vs. students who do not will reflect pre-existing differences in the kinds of students who sign up for extra instruction. Recently, researchers have begun using “waitlist controls” – identifying teachers, schools, or students interested in NBI and then randomly assigning some of them to NBI and the rest to TI (e.g., Wells et al., 2015). Guarding against pre-existing differences between the teachers, schools, and students being compared lends greater confidence that any gains are due to the instruction itself. |
| The effects of NBI on academic learning are real; they do not simply reflect the rosy assessments of biased observers. | Early research often relied on subjective assessments of outcomes by persons who believe in NBI. Advocates, practitioners, and parents of children who choose NBI may perceive benefits in the absence of any real effects, whether consciously or unconsciously. More recent research guards against such bias by employing objective measures or assessments made “blind to condition” – without knowing which students were in which condition (NBI or TI) (e.g., Ernst and Stanek, 2006). In these studies, an advantage of NBI over TI cannot be attributed to wishful thinking. |
| The nature-learning connection holds up across topics, learners, instructors, pedagogies, places, and measures of learning. | As researchers have continued to conduct studies, the body of studies testing the nature-learning hypothesis has grown larger and more diverse. (e.g., Faber Taylor et al., 2002; Maynard et al., 2013; O’Haire et al., 2013; Ruiz-Gallardo et al., 2013; Frenery and Bogner, 2014; Lekies et al., 2015; Swank et al., 2017; Kuo e al., 2018a; McCree et al., 2018; Sivarajah et al., 2018). A robust association persisting across different contexts lends greater confidence in a cause-and-effect relationship (Hill, 1985, p. 8). |
| The relationship between nature and learning holds up across different research designs. | Over time, a greater variety of study designs have been employed, including true experiments (e.g., Wells et al., 2015), quasi-experiments (e.g., Faber Taylor and Kuo, 2009; Benfield et al., 2015), large-scale correlational studies with statistical controls (e.g., Kuo and Faber Taylor, 2004), and longitudinal studies (e.g., McCree et al., 2018). Findings persisting across diverse study designs strengthen the case for causality. |
| The advantages of NBI over TI may stem from both setting and pedagogy. | Previous reviews drew only upon studies examining the effects of NBI on learning. In this review, we expanded our reach to include research on both the setting and the pedagogy of NBI, respectively. Educational psychologists working in the classroom have found that active, hands-on, student-centered, and collaborative forms of instruction outperform mor traditional instructional approaches (Granger et al., 2012; Freeman et al., 2014; Kontra et al., 2015). Environmental psychologists have found better learning in “greener” settings – even when the instruction does not incorporate the nature (Benfield et al., 2015; Kuo et al., 2018b). These additional bodies of evidence converge to support and perhaps explain the advantages of NBI over TI. |
| Nature experiences may promote learning via at least eight distinct pathways. | Again, previous reviews drew only upon direct tests of the nature-learning hypothesis – studies in which nature was the independent variable and learning was the dependent variable. In this review, we also examined studies in which nature was the independent variable but the dependent variable was a precursor to learning (for example, Li and Sullivan, 2016, examines impacts of classroom views of nature on attention, which has long been established as an important precursor to learning., e.g., Rowe and Rowe, 1992). Evidence of mechanism lends greater plausibility to a cause-and-effect relationship between nature and learning. The multiple mechanisms identified here may also help explain the consistency of the nature-learning relationship, as robust phenomena are often multiply determined. |
In recent years, the evidence of a cause-and-effect relationship between nature experiences and learning has advanced considerably. Some advances can be traced to the adoption of more rigorous research methods in individual studies (first four rows), others can be traced to the maturation of the field (second two rows), and still, others stem from broadening the kinds of evidence considered in reviews (last two rows).
