Improving preschool teachers' skills in OutdooR Education

We wanted to discover and implement new outdoor learning and teaching strategies in our preschools. We were curious to learn more about how we can develop our outdoor environment by increasing bio...

We wanted to discover and implement new outdoor learning and teaching strategies in our preschools. We were curious to learn more about how we can develop our outdoor environment by increasing biodiversity in our preschool yards and offering children environments where they can explore, experience and learn by using all their senses. Increased biodiversity brings benefits to children through a richer and more varied play, increased physical activity and increased sensory experiences and learning. In the last years, we have seen how children's outdoor environments have become ‘poorer’ based on, among other things, a safety mindset and on an idea of perfection where we deprive children of their right to try, discover, learn and develop both motor skills and intellectual knowledge in the best possible way. Our motto throughout the project was that "what you have a closer relationship with, is what you care most about". By implementing training activities we wanted to discover good examples of new teaching and learning activities and strategies, as well as to get inspiration for a more varied and stimulating outdoor environment in preschools.

During the two project years, we implemented all the planned activities we had considered at the application phase. Furthermore, several online coordination meetings took place in order to ensure good management and quality of the work. At the beginning of the project we had a kick-off meeting where 2 representatives from each partner organization met and discussed about the first steps. Then we had 3 training activities, one in each project partners country, where partners set focus on specific themes: mutual exchange of practices and guidelines on the outdoor education, development of education strategies on sustainable and environmental friendly attitude towards the schools surroundings, outdoor activities as a tool for inclusion of children coming from different cultural background. Then, in March 2024, the project participants visited SLU in Alnarp, where they had the planned seminar acitivity and lectures/discussions about outdoor environment for play and pedagogy. After that, there was the testing phase of the best pracitces identified by each project partner and that then have been collected in the final handbook (attached here).

During the project, we gained new knowledge and inspiration. We understood the importance for children of being exposed to a well-thought-out outdoor environment that promotes development, learning, play and physical activity. An environment that offers a variety of materials and experiences where good teaching can give children the opportunity to develop a closer relationship with our nature and knowledge about how to live more healthily and sustainably. The area that challenged us most was how a safe yard should be designed. How our educational mission can come into conflict with parents' fears that children can hurt themselves. In the project, we have been able to try out various practical activities and teaching methods that we could immediately take home to our preschools to try out. One example of a teaching method was the one that the Nature School presented to us during the training in Sweden.As a final deliverable within our ORE project, we produced a final publication (that we called "Inspirational book") consisting of a summary of the project´s activities, objectives and results. This book contains also a collection of best practices that partners exchanged/tested and a reflection on the testing phase and its results.