Nature at school: is it time for an outdoor classroom?

As soon as the deconfinement measures were announced, the idea of a school where classes would be held outside the building began to grow. Several forums called for schools to be opened up to society, for classes to be held outside. With the implementation of strict sanitary protocols, this outdoor school became both a "healthy and salutary solution" and a symbol of newfound freedom.

Sylvain Wagnon, University of Montpellier

This movement to open up to nature is not new. It's a long-standing, international educational trend that is now enjoying a real revival. So has the time come to move from theory to practice, from experimentation to generalization, and to establish a new relationship between human beings and their environment?

Nature and well-being

The benefits of connecting children with nature are manifold and recognized by numerous studies. The past few months have shown us just how vital a connection with nature can be. Can we speak of a simple initiative on the occasion of deconfinement, or of the emergence, as Moina Fauchier-Delavigne and Mathieu Chereau have written, of a green revolution in education?

Being active in nature is not only good for a child's health, but also for his or her well-being. Playing and spending time in nature, observing, running, singing, listening and smelling are all ways of improving independence and confidence. This creates a different relationship with oneself and one's environment. The presence of nature influences our behavior and emotions.

From an educational point of view, its psychological benefits are reflected not only in behavior, but also in cognitive development, as the child's needs and interests are taken into account.

While still pioneering in France, scientific studies in English-speaking countries are numerous. In Great Britain, the work of Katherine Mycock shows the importance of learning in nature for children's development. In France, curiosity about this alternative form of education has been growing for the past ten years.

Concrete knowledge

This can be described as nature-based education, with the aim of reconnecting children with the environment. The discovery of natural elements is a way of moving away from exclusively book-based learning and extrapolating knowledge to confront the environment through the senses, the body and the mind.

L'éducation hors les murs aims to develop a hands-on exploration of nature for the very young. Children play, climb trees and build things. These are all experiences that already exist in summer camps or scouting, but here they take on an academic character. Knowledge not only gives rise to exploration and social interaction, but also to the acquisition of multiple skills in arithmetic, vocabulary and scientific, geographical, historical or artistic understanding.

"Luxembourg: une école maternelle s'est installée dans une forêt" (Télé Matin, 2017).

Today, these outdoor activities are also seen as important for well-being in the face of a sedentary lifestyle that is multiplying health problems such as hyperactivity, anxiety, obesity and stress.

There are several principles that unite schools that make this choice:

• the notion of nature as a source of pleasure for children
• the desire for an all-round education that takes into account the different facets of a person's personality
• the idea of developing a relationship with its environment.

Historical precedents

Ever since Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, educational reformers have stressed the importance of nature in the harmonious development of children. The pedagogues of the new education movement at the beginning of the ^20th century, such as Freinet and Decroly, theorized about this school of life, where it's important to get out of the classroom to observe, experiment and understand.

At the beginning of the ^20th century, open-air schools represented a European pedagogical movement that proposed opening the school's architecture to the outside world and developing a pedagogy linked to nature. The current exhibition on the Suresnes open-air school highlights the architectural and educational innovations of this type of school.

Today, forest schools and outdoor education schools form a structured global network. As early as the 1920s, schools in the USA were already making nature the very reason for their existence. Forest schools have been growing steadily in Europe, mainly in Germanic and Scandinavian countries. In Denmark, the idea of a forest school has become an integral part of the curriculum for pre-school children (under the age of seven).

Over the last ten years or so, a national program has been set up in Great Britain, and the country now boasts over 140 forestry schools as such.

In France, nature schools are still developing slowly. The "pedagogy through nature" movement is trying to structure educational experiences that make nature their foundation. Since 2018, several schools have joined this movement.

Eco-citizen schools

In addition to providing an introduction to sustainable development and knowledge and respect for the environment, which are now part and parcel of school curricula, eco-citizen schools involve pupils in concrete actions, such as the debudding and revegetation of playgrounds. The eco-school network represents several thousand schools which, since 2005, have been working to develop specific skills in sustainable development and education.

Presentation of the eco-school network.

The challenge is to go beyond the rhetoric of a connection with nature, and implement the interdisciplinary practices of the outdoor school. Experimentation is taking place within the public education system. Schools in the Doubs region are developing "open sky" practices, and local players are campaigning for them.

Bringing children closer to nature and the environment means approaching education in a profoundly different way. The health situation, worries about the future and the need to take action for the ecological transition offer a favorable context and prospects for the "outdoor school". Will the various players in education - schools, parents and teachers - be able to recognize this for the sake of their children's future, and undertake a genuine educational reform based on the harmony of human beings with their environment?

Sylvain Wagnon, Professor of Education, Faculty of Education, University of Montpellier

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.