Outdoor education is learning that takes place outside the classroom. Typically it involves a residential experience where students may be offered opportunities to have a go at a variety of outdoor pursuits, from kayaking to rock climbing. Alternatively outdoor education may focus on the environment, encouraging students to see themselves as part of something bigger than themselves.Outdoor education pioneers include Kurt Hahn, the German educationalist who founded such projects such as the Schule Schloss Salem in Germany, Gordonstoun School in Scotland, Atlantic College in Wales, the United World Colleges movement, and the Outward Bound schools in the UK and the USA. Other UK programmes, such as the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme, also emphasised the challenge of the outdoors. In Europe the Forest Schools of Denmark have similar aims and objectives.The movement began in the UK during the Second World War with the founding of the first Outward Bound centre at Aberdovey in Wales. After the war many local authorities in the UK emulated the Outward Bound principles and set up their own outdoor education centres for school children. Visits to these outdoor centres were often subsidised, allowing many children from the towns and cities their first real experience of the outdoor world.By the late 1980s most UK local education authorities had an outdoor education centre, and there was a growing private sector offering similar experiences. Government moves to offer more autonomy to schools have badly affected this provision. Under regulations for the local management of schools that took effect in England and Wales from 1992 onwards, the majority of the money spent on education in the UK now goes direct to the school, and local authorities often find it difficult to subsidise their outdoor education centres. As a result many have closed.Recently there has been concern expressed about the decline in the number and quality of school trips in the UK. In 2005 the Parliamentory select committee on Education published a report on 'Education outside the classroom'
? !publications.parliament.uk which called on the UK government to do more to protect and promote outdoor education. In response the government promised to issue a manifesto for outdoor education, setting out what schools ought to offer their pupils.
Aims of Outdoor Education - Observers often misunderstand the nature of the outdoor education experience. Children learning how to canoe or rock climb are not expected to master the skills - though some may go on to become canoeists or rock climbers. The aim of outdoor education is not the activity, but the experience of working alongside others and the challenge of overcoming adversity. There is much anecdotal evidence of the benefit of the outdoor experience; teachers speak of the huge improvement in relationships that often follows a trip, and delinquent students are often offered an outdoor education residential trip as part of their behaviour management programme. There is, however, little hard evidence to show that outdoor education has a demonstrable long term effect on either behaviour or educational achievement; this may be because the variables involved are too complex to be separated.
See also -
!backpackersfieldmanual.org - Backpackers Field Manual a guide to Backpacking and outdoor skills
outdoored.com - OutdoorEd.com information and articles on outdoor & experiential education
wilderdom.com - Outdoor Education Research & Evaluation Center
outdoor-learning.org - Institute for Outdoor Learning
eoe-network.org - European Institute of Outdoor and Experiential Learning
education.guardian.co.uk - 'Outdoors is Great', article in The Guardian supporting outdoor education
education.guardian.co.uk - 'Out of Bounds'. Guardian article examining the 'decline' in school trips in the UK
guardian.co.uk - Obituary in The Guardian of Kenneth Oldham, one of the pioneers of outdoor education in the UK, who also wrote the first guide to the Pennine !WayCategory:EducationCategory: Education? in the United Kingdom