Learning in the Outdoor Classroom

- a Swedish Anthology of Activities

It gives us great pleasure to be able to share with you our experiences and methods related to outdoor, place-based and environmental education in various subject areas. This book aims to provide teachers around the globe with material that can build enthusiasm and interest in the environment and the outdoors by complementing daily learning with outdoor curriculum-based activities, thus making language, maths, science, technology, and environmental issues understandable and real. Furthermore we want to highlight education for sustainable development, as teachers need to develop reflective learners in this world of change where a shifting mindset is crucial for a positive future.

In the school of tomorrow, we hope that “high-touch” as well as high-tech learning will be the natural way of learning so that children gain long-lasting and useful knowledge about the world, others, and themselves.

This book offers great ideas for you to begin teaching in your own outdoor setting – for example, in the schoolyard, the playground, the park or in an urban environment just as well as in a forest. Naturally, the outdoors offers a wonderful place for interaction, communication, and creativity as well as for memorable and fun times.

That is what all of us, the seventeen contributors, want to share with you with this book.

Enjoy!