Modern living has become risk adverse and interaction with a natural environment has become reduced due to lack of opportunity, lack of confidence, and a perception of heightened dangers from ‘strangers’ or from injury. Families are under more pressure to identify time for enjoyment and interaction and without support are not prioritizing outside activities but are relying on technology and media for entertainment. The rise in migration to cities and loss of outside space available has further impacted on the time spent outdoor. Children’s time has become more restricted with additional homework or responsibilities. Personal connections with nature seem hard to come by, an aspect which threatens to reduce the care about the environment on the part of future generations. Increasing evidence demonstrates the benefits of nature on children's psychological and physical well-being, including reduced stress, greater physical health, more creativity and improved concentration. increased recess time and greener playgrounds encourage children to learn more effectively, and improve a child's ability to concentrate in the classroom. There is a high correlation between successful learning outcomes and good physical and mental well-being. Creative exploration and first-hand experience of nature are the best ways for children to learn about subjects-including science, art, music, math’s. We used critical study results to develop a project based on alternative activities to encourage students to perform better in class and to engage with their wider environment. We have designed this project in the hope that we will be able to pilot a new methods to attain the desired results and share them with other schools all around Europe. We believe this initiative will be more successful as a transnational project because we there will be added value in observing pupils in differing environments relate to nature, how schools with a differing social, cultural and economic dynamics tackle similar issues. Our main objectives are: 1. To improve the competence of teachers in designing activities to be conducted outdoors and integrating them in regular practice 2. To enable teachers in EU countries to cooperate and produce a common output which will be used further in their schools, as well as by other schools 3. To promote nature as a learning environment 4. To improve the acquisition of skills and competences by pupils 5. To make parents aware of the importance of outdoor time 6. To develop teachers’ and pupils’ critical thinking and intercultural competence 7. To develop participants’ communication, interpersonal skills Participants Teachers (5/country/LTTA) will attend transnational events to meet with their peers from different countries. There, they will be able to test their methods, compare and contrast the realities of different systems of education, participate in cultural events and activities and then disseminate the information locally. Activities C1 – Learning outdoors – current trends in Europe (organized in Italy in Nov 2018) C2 – Nature activities and numeracy (Turkey in Feb 2019) C3 – Nature activities and literacy (Poland in May 2019) C4 – Nature activities and science (Romania in Oct 2019) C5 – Nature activities and the exploration of the self through arts and crafts (UK in Mar 2020) Results - Report about activities in the nature developed regularly in the schools, their purpose, objectives and methodology, the frequency of such actions (as discussed during LTTA1) - Collection of activities to develop numeracy which can be performed outdoors (as presented during LTTA2) - Collection of outdoor activities to develop literacy (LTTA3) - Collection of outdoor activities to enable the study of sciences (LTTA4) - Collection of outdoor activities to boost self-awareness, self-expression through arts and crafts (LTTA5) All these collections will be put together in the final output of the project, “Getting students outside – ideas for outdoor activities to improve school performance”. - 5 newsletters, one after each transnational event, which will also be used for dissemination purposes. - A brochure with pictures and information about all the partner countries which will be distributed in the schools and displayed in the Erasmus+ corner - The project website - Certificates of participation - Students’ work - Pictures of activities Impact It is envisaged that schools will strengthen their relationship with the parents, students and teachers. There will be improved dialogue among all the school community, as a result of the new activities. This will benefit the school in the development and improvement planning. It is also hoped that this project will prompt future collaborations with parents and increase parents engagement and
At the application stage, we wrote: Modern living has become risk adverse and interaction with a natural environment has become reduced due to lack of opportunity, lack of confidence, and a perception of heightened dangers from ‘strangers’ or from injury. Families are under more pressure to identify time for enjoyment and interaction and without support are not prioritizing outside activities but are relying on technology and media for entertainment. Personal connections with nature seem hard to come by, an aspect which threatens to reduce the care about the environment on the part of future generations. Increasing evidence demonstrates the benefits of nature on children's psychological and physical well-being, including reduced stress, greater physical health, more creativity and improved concentration. Increased recess time and greener playgrounds encourage children to learn more effectively, which, in turn improves a child's ability to concentrate in the classroom. Creative exploration and first-hand experience of nature are the best ways for children to learn about subjects-including science, art, music and maths. We believe this initiative will be more successful as a transnational project because we there will be added value in observing pupils in differing environments relating to nature, how schools with a differing social, cultural and economic dynamics tackle similar issues. This was written 3 years ago and it has now become even more important with the pandemic where families were not able to go out and enjoy the outdoors, where lockdown prevented us leaving our homes and where schools were shut across Europe. Our main objectives at application stage were: 1. To improve the competence of teachers in designing activities to be conducted outdoors and integrating them in regular practice 2. To enable teachers in EU countries to cooperate and produce a common output which will be used further in our schools and other schools. 3. To promote nature as a learning environment 4. To improve the acquisition of skills and competences by pupils 5. To make parents aware of the importance of outdoor time 6. To develop teachers’ and pupils’ critical thinking and intercultural competence 7. To develop participants’ communication, interpersonal skills These objectives haven't changed over the duration of the project. We would like to add that the project has had far more long term benefits and the sustainability of our project is really secure. All of our schools have now timetabled outdoor learning into their weekly curriculum. Teachers have undertaken specialist training into the benefits of outdoor learning as well as learning lots of new methods and lesson ideas that they can take part in. The pupils themselves have also hugely benefitted from spending more time outdoors which can be evidenced through questionnaires, quotes, attendance records and by just seeing how engaged and enthused they are when it comes to outdoor learning time. The project has also had a couple of bumps along the road. Firstly, one country pulled out at the very beginning. It was agreed that we would share the responsibilities of this country and that we would take more teachers on other mobilities so the project could still reach out and influence the same number of teachers that we said it would in the application stage. The pandemic made things harder but we still carried out a virtual mobility and came up with inventive ways to continue to engage our pupils through remote learning. Each country made valuable contributions: Italy • Organised C1, meeting report for C1, newsletter no. 1, evaluation of C1 • Report about activities in nature • Provided model dissemination plans for all partners e.g., Facebook page, e-twinning, local paper, prefecto • Organised an interactive workshop run by a psychologist in order to present and analyse ways to determine an improvement in the situation at the level of the children and parents Turkey • Organised C2, meeting report for C2, newsletter no. 2, evaluation of C2 • Collection of outdoor activities to develop Numeracy • Website for the project Romania • Organised C4, meeting report for C4, newsletter no. 4, evaluation of C4 • Collection of outdoor activities to enable the study of Science. • Established an eTwinning space UK • Overall evaluation, coordination of the project output, monitoring, dissemination at European level • Design of overall implementation plan, provides model of local implementation and monitoring plans for the partners • Organised C5, meeting report C5, newsletter no. 5, evaluation of C5 • Compile the collection of outdoor activities through arts & crafts • Created the E-Booklet on outdoor learning activities There are many results from our project which have effected teachers, pupils and their families. We have also created a book with over 60 lesson ideas for outdoor learning, further strengthening the long term sustainability of this wonderful project.