By setting up the classroom outdoors, we wanted to place greater emphasis on experiential learning and students' connection with nature, thereby increasing interest in sustainable development and awareness. We also wanted to increase the share of project work with the aim of strengthening relationships between students and between teachers and students, thus improving students' social skills. We wanted to encourage collaborative learning and enable cross-curricular connections. With the project activities, we wanted to improve the physical and mental health of the students and their ability to empathize, encourage curiosity, and in this way improve the academic success of the students and increase motivation. We also wanted the students to strengthen their awareness of the natural and cultural diversity of the countries of the European Union. As part of the follow-up at the workplace, we wanted to familiarize teachers with the goals and methods of Montessori pedagogy, and improve their professional skills in the field of outdoor learning. We also wanted encourage them to think about how to include this way of working as much as possible in the everyday pedagogic process.
We decided on the project for several reasons. The first was that, as a learning environment, we wanted to take advantage of the many natural areas around the school. Before the implementation of the project, lessons outside the classroom were very rare - even in Science and technology. The exception was sports days and outdoor schools. Given that most research around the world also finds a positive correlation between physical activity and intelligence, i.e. logical thinking, spatial perception, verbal and technical abilities, we decided to set up and equip an outdoor classroom in a nearby forest and move as much of the lessons as possible to nature. Our goal was that all classes take place outdoors at least once a week. We found that outdoor lessons are insufficiently integrated into the school structure. Teachers lacked the competence to teach outdoors; with the activities within the project, we wanted to make sense of the learning content and connect outdoor teaching activities with the goals of the curriculum. The teachers wanted to research and test in practice different approaches to teaching - Montessori pedagogy, forest pedagogy. The third reason was raising students' awareness of the protection of the natural environment