What is Outdoor Education?
Outdoor education is any learning in, for, and about the outdoors. On this site, I use outdoor education to mean children in any educational environment (school, home, camp, you name it) spending time outside with the goal of connecting to nature. This can range from a formal lesson with clear objectives and outcomes, to a nature hike through a local park, to completely unstructured child-led play in a natural setting. The only rule is you have to be outdoors.
Benefits of Outdoor Education
There are so many incredible benefits to spending time outside– far too many to list here. But if you need some convincing, here are a few of my favorite reasons why we should all be getting outdoors more. Children who regularly spend time in nature demonstrate clear improvements in all areas of their development, including:
- Collaboration
- Creativity
- Problem solving
- Language development
- Social skills
- Motivation and concentration
- Physical skills
- Academic performance
Who can do Outdoor Education?
You! And you. Oh, and also you!
Outdoor education is for everyone. Little kids, big kids, teenagers, grown ups, grandparents, and everyone in between. We can all benefit from spending time outdoors.
Outdoor education is not just something that happens at school or under the guidance of a trained teacher (although that’s great, too!).
It’s the learning that happens on your walk from the house to the car, or when you’re walking the dog around the block, or even when walking across the parking lot on the way to the grocery store.
We are all teachers, and we are all learners. I want to empower YOU to be an outdoor educator, no matter where you live, what your background is, or how much experience you have. With the resources on this site, you will become a confident and capable leader, ready to embrace the magic of learning outdoors.