Bringing Learning to Life

This Teaching Matters article from Edinburgh University’s Dave Clarke, Teaching Fellow in Outdoor and Sustainability Education, provides valuable tips on how to bring teaching outside the classroom. Separated into nine steps, this resource advises keeping thing simple and enjoying the process of approaching teaching in a new way.

Learning Outside the Classroom

Developed by leading Outdoor Environmental Education academics at Edinburgh University, this resource book, available through Discover.Ed and at Moray House Library, offers a comprehensive guide to developing and delivering learning experiences in the outdoor. Offering both theoretical and practical guidance, this is a comprehensive guide on developing robust learning strategies outdoors. From Pete Higgins, Simon Beames, and Robbie Nicol.

Outdoor Learning Across the Curriculum

The significantly revised and updated version of the book above, this work from the Outdoor Environmental Education team at Edinburgh University, more deeply explains how well constructed outdoor learning experiences can benefit young people’s academic development and health and wellbeing. It outlines the theory and practice to enable educators to incorporate meaningful outdoor learning opportunities into their daily teaching activities, in a range of environments and with diverse groups. There are four additional chapters in addition to reimagined chapters from the previous edition. Heidi Smith joins Pete Higgins, Simon Beames and Robbie Nicol in this edition.

Creating Edinburgh: The Interdisciplinary City

Creating Edinburgh, a groundbreaking interdisciplinary course at the Edinburgh Futures Institute, asks students to set out from the seminar room to explore the city of Edinburgh through different disciplinary lenses. It offers a unique opportunity for students to engage with the contemporary city as a site for new ideas, designs, and methods. This page showcases experiential walking routes developed by students at Edinburgh University, which include explorations of history, tradition, colonialism, immigration, and gender issues within the city.

Learning for Sustainability Scotland

Hosted by Edinburgh University, Learning for Sustainability Scotland is a network of educators, practitioners and key partners, all working together to embed learning for sustainability and the UN Sustainable Development Goals across all types of education. The network hosts task groups, and local & national events; creating opportunities for members to get together and sharing information, resources, policy and good practice.

Residential and Hybrid Learning

This contribution from Heidi Smith, Lecturer of Outdoor Environmental Education at the University of Edinburgh sets out how to develop authentic learning communities in outdoor and residential settings, including expansion of the personal tutor/tutee process, and the collaboration required for hybrid teaching styles in the age of online lectures. While this was created in the context of the pandemic and previous tutoring structures in place at the University of Edinburgh, there are still some useful takeaways for those engaged in hybrid teaching practices in diverse settings.

Practical Guidance, Ideas, and Support

From Education Scotland, this document supports educators to capitalise on a broad-spectrum of outdoor learning experiences, from simple learning activities close to classroom grounds through to residential experiences. This publication is largely targeted at educators working with younger students, but, like above, there are still some useful points made here that can be tailored and contextualised for the higher education context.

Learning, Teaching and Research Strategy 

As part of its carbon sequestration project, the University of Edinburgh is mitigating unavoidable mitigation through woodland creation and peatland restoration at various sites across Scotland. The Learning Teaching and Research Strategy sets out a vision for using these sites to ensure climate and sustainability teaching is core to the curriculum and the student experience, enabling all students to critically engage, learn and feel empowered to take action to address the climate and environmental crises.

What Else?

While many of these resources provide useful and meaningful insight into how to practically deliver nature based and outdoor learning, there are noticeable gaps in the literature, namely around the provision of resources specifically targeted at those teaching and learning in Higher Education. Part of the purpose of this Nature Based Learning project at the Edinburgh Earth Initiative has been to identify and articulate this gap, paving the way towards further work and investment in this area in the future.