Finnish nature schools are environmental education organisations offering outdoor programmes for classes in natural environments. They are intended to contribute to the aims of the national ...curriculum in various subjects. This qualitative study examines how students describe their learning in a nature school context and how they describe differences between learning in nature and learning in the classroom. After a nature school day, 30 10-11-year-old pupils participated in focus groups interviews. The data were analysed through inductive content analysis. Nature school learning was described as cognitive, affective, social and as providing practical skills learning, although some pupils claimed that they had not learned anything. The differences between the learning environments were described as differences in learning activities, concreteness, external conditions, learning topics, perceived ability to concentrate and differences in motivation. We stress the importance of reflection on learning in order to raise pupils' awareness of their outdoor learning.
Environmental free-choice learning is a strategy that has been shown to have positive short-term impacts upon participants’ attitudes and understanding of desired educational outcomes. However, ...longitudinal studies in this area are rare due to difficulties inherent in data collection and vast differences in participants in these kinds of educational experiences. This study examined the effectiveness of participation in the Skunk River Navy, a free-choice environmental education experience, 1 – 4 years afterward to determine longitudinal effects of the experience on participants’ attitudes toward waterways and content knowledge. Importantly, participants were compared to non-participants who were also biology majors in the same program, completed the same coursework, and who likely shared similar dispositions, interest in biology, and are of similar demographic backgrounds. Results indicate that attitudes toward waterways and content knowledge were higher among participants, but that content knowledge remains lower than desired by program developers. Therefore, when reducing the impact of selection and variance within the study population, longitudinal positive effects can be seen from free-choice learning experiences when they are coupled with formal classroom experiences that address similar concepts.
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