The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of the nature education project on the attitudes and awareness levels of secondary school students towards the environment. The research is based on an experimental model which is a type quantitative research approaches and the population consisting of the students studying at a secondary school…

Evidence is mounting that children have decreasing exposure to the natural world, which makes sense as the population of the planet urbanizes and many interests and assignments involve digital technology. According to the United Nations, 54% of the world's population now live in cities (2014), and a 2010 study by the Kaiser Health Foundation found…

This article describes how a farm-based class in the Great Lakes region investigated how plants and animals prepare for winter. Two groups of children, ranging in ages from three to five years old, had a farm, pasture, gardens, forest, and a pond available for exploration. A low teacher-to-child ratio was maintained, with one teacher to…

This study presents a new technique, the "Which plant am I?" game, which helps to increase pupils' plant knowledge, while motivate them to become familiar with more plants. On the other hand pupils' plant knowledge was tested in Serbia. The "Which Plant Am I?" game was tested with two groups of pupils (in average 11 years old).…

The Arnold Arboretum Field Study Program provides outdoor experiences for children in order to develop authentic firsthand knowledge of life sciences. The Arboretum welcomes approximately 3,200 children (preK-5) from greater Boston annually. During the program called Explorations with Head Start participants, the children visit three times…

Teaching and learning must be transformed in order to prepare learners to respond to escalating social, economic and environmental challenges. The primary purpose of this paper is to contribute to the process of wilding pedagogy. The lessons learned in this paper emerge mainly from a desktop study and educational excursions to a natural resources…

In this paper I share my understandings of an elective outdoor environmental education course, a significant component of which was a field school. I helped develop this course at the Canadian university where I work as an academic, with the field school conducted on the island of Kaua'i in Hawaii. The paper describes the university field school…

Throughout the United Kingdom's (UK's) primary science curriculum, there are numerous opportunities for teachers to use the farming industry as a rich and engaging real-world context for science learning. Teachers can focus on the animals and plants on the farm as subjects for children to learn about life processes. They can turn attention…

As well as providing a valuable and enjoyable experience for pupils, outdoor learning also enhances and contextualises learning in science by helping pupils understand science concepts. Teachers' lack of confidence in which aspects of the science curriculum they can actually teach outdoors deters them from venturing outside the classroom for…

One of the standards for life science addressed in the "Next Generation Science Standards" (NGSS Lead States 2013) is "Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics" (HS-LS2). A critical concept included in this core idea is biodiversity. To show competency, students are expected to design investigations, collect data, and…

Recent educational legislative acts and public debates in Sweden stress the importance of preschools providing playful and meaningful activities to enhance early experiences in environmental and natural science (e.g., Ministry of Education and Research, 2016). The present study investigates three 5-6 year old children making meaning of the concept…

Why save wilderness? Environmental educators usually offer ecosystemic and aesthetic reasons, yet clearly this abstract approach has failed to resonate with the wider public. In this article I adopt a nutritional strategy based on a broad array of sources. Wild plant food, in terms of economics, ubiquity, and other measures, performs very well…

Outdoor, hands-on and experiential learning, as opposed to instruction-based learning in classroom, increases student satisfaction and motivation leading to a deeper understanding of the subject. However, the use of outdoor exercises in undergraduate biology courses is declining due to a variety of constraints. Thus, the goal of this paper is to…

Two cases of context-sensitive mobile computing curricula for children are shown to develop analytical understandings of how science-related sense-making talk can be supported through physical and digital environment interaction, which supports play and learning through movement. Our work investigates how proximity-based computing mediates…

In this article Rebecca Kurson describes her school garden, now in its second year, as one that the lower school (preK-5) students plant and observe as often as possible. They call the garden an "outdoor classroom," and the younger students are particularly interested in how the plants grow. Kruson had lots of garden activities…