Nurturing Affinity to Nature through Outdoor Learning in Special Places (NANOL) project intends through the encouragement of teachers to expand learning outside the school, keep active children in contact with nature, and engage them with the real world and authentic issues that surrounds them. Benefits of outdoor learning (OL) to improve compulsory education have been widely studied. Specifically, school field trips related to the curriculum involving contact with nature are beneficial for school students on various levels. At a cognitive level, field trips are justified by the need for direct contact with materials and phenomena that help achieve higher levels of cognition. OL facilitates the understanding and application of abstract concepts, positively impacting long-term memory. Further, these are experiences not available in the classroom or laboratory, so it is necessary to integrate practical opportunities into the curriculum. OL also provides health and well-being and psychological benefits, such as: individual growth, improved social skills, social cohesion and links between affective and cognitive domains. For NANOL's specific purposes, evoked emotions and learning help foster environmental education and pro-environmental behaviours, essential for informed actions that lead to protect and enhance the environment. Nurturing affinity with special places fosters the emotional as well as the cognitive. In all European countries, non-formal education facilities linked to protected areas promote environmental awareness and help the public value their natural and cultural heritage. Schools located in these special places are well placed to take advantage of these educational offers and integrate them into their teaching practice, but the fit between provider and school needs is not always ideal. One of the key objectives of protected areas is the promotion of environmental values and the involvement of the population in their protection. Connecting learners to the physical and social reality, contextualizing learners' curricular experiences in these stimulating settings, promoting interactions that create relevant personal meanings and fostering a 'sense of place' in the local area, are effective ways to achieve this aim. So, our main objectives in the NANOL project are: • To support primary teachers to use OL settings and implement innovative OL school practices linked to curricula. • To encourage collaboration between schools and local Natural Parks or other special places' organisations by sharing different frames and practices between educators to stimulate affinity to nature. Partners in NANOL project are from 5 different countries (Spain, United Kingdom, France, Finland and Slovenia) and from different educational institutions (2 universities, 4 primary schools and 4 non-formal educational organisations). Participants will be 14 school teachers and 8 educators with different backgrounds that will work together to co-create and assess educational activities that involve OL for primary education. Around 200 students of primary education will benefit directly of the project. NANOL project is organised in 3 phases: Phase I: TRAINING and CREATING. In year1 school teachers and members of educational organisations will work together to share experiences, detect needs, learn about the places and different pedagogies related to their interests, frame learning objectives, create pedagogical tools, didactic units or other educational proposals that incorporate OL including active learning strategies in the protected area related to clear educational objectives and curriculum. Expected results are: didactic units, learning toolboxes or other educational materials linked to OL and curriculum and created to be applied the following year. Phase II: APPLYING and EVALUATING. In year 2 teachers test out what has been created in the previous year by applying it to their students. They will have the support of educators of the organisations with who have been working together the previous year. So, OL will be applied and monitored and feed-back of students will be also contemplated. Expected results are: evaluation, conclusions and improvement of the application. Phase III: DISSEMINATING, SHARING AND COMPARING. Participants will write their results and conclusions and this will lead to a final meeting and conference where we will share experiences from what has been done in the different schools, compare them and learn from each other. Expected results are: individual final documents of experiences in each country and a final electronic report with the compilation of all experiences, comparisons, conclusions and guidelines that will be open access published. The whole will contribute to wider dissemination and help other schools and special places develop material to nurture affinity to nature.
The Nurturing Affinity to Nature through Outdoor Learning in Special Places (NANOL) project has explored different approaches to nurture affinity to nature in primary education. The background of the project takes into consideration the studies that show children’s access to natural environments is declining and unequal, that this disconnection is changing relationships with nature, and that primary students’ ages represent a particularly fruitful developmental period for “place and nature" engagements and it is associated with exploratory and playful practices that broader inquiring minds. The NANOL project has focused on a triple approach: the role teachers and students have in their learning processes; the relationships with other stakeholders; and the value of the place. We used the term outdoor learning and added “in special places” in the name of the project, to suggest that the geographical landscapes and biodiversity of the protected areas were considered out of the ordinary and worthy of protection. This was not to downplay the potential to develop “affinity with nature” in “ordinary” places such as school grounds, gardens, and local urban parks, but to acknowledge the particularly powerful opportunities presented in places noted for their exemplary quality in terms of biodiversity and/or landscape attributes. The objectives of the project have been, then: • To support primary teachers to use outdoor learning settings in nature and implement innovative outdoor learning school practices linked to curricula. • To encourage collaboration between schools and local Natural Parks or other special places' organisations by sharing different frames and practices between educators to stimulate affinity to nature. To accomplish the aforementioned objectives, nine partners from different countries and backgrounds have been working together. They are: the Nature School of Haltia, Metsähallitus Parks and Wildlife, Finland; Accueil et Découverte en Conflent in the Natural Reserve of Py, France; Rak Centre of Centre Šolskih in Obšolskih Dejavnosti (CŠOD), Slovenia; Associació Centre d'Educació Ambiental Alt Ter”, Spain; Kintaus school, Finland; École publique élémentaire de Lascelle, France; Dr Robert school, Spain; University of Plymouth, United Kingdom; and University of Girona, Spain. The methodology applied in the NANOL project has been mainly qualitative and based on participatory methods. It has been contextualised in each partner reality with the common goal to explore nurturing affinity to nature from several angles and perspectives. Sharing of initiatives and knowledge has been the core of the transnational meetings. This is why we have organised different workshops and dynamics, to encourage active sharing and participation. Results have been published in an electronic document entitled “Nurturing Affinity to Nature” and accessible under a Creative Commons license on the: https://dugi-doc.udg.edu/handle/10256/18058. The publication can be useful to teachers, educators, technicians and managers of protected areas that are interested in experiential education and outdoor learning in nature. The added value of the NANOL project has been that, despite having a common frame to work, each partner has supplied resources from its own context and needs in a process where the results have been complementary. Partners’ initiatives have been innovative in the sense that they have introduced new practises and featured new methods; such as student-centred approaches, the use of ICT in nature trails or cutting-edge programmes like the terrestrial educational areas.