In recent years, there has been much talk about the need to digitise schools to enable students to keep up with the times, and substantial resources have been invested to achieve this. However, there is another issue that is becoming increasingly prominent: bringing children into contact with nature. This is not a new idea, as evidenced by the growing number of books and studies on this topic .

According to Michela Schenetti, associate professor of General Education and Special Education at the University of Bologna , outdoor teaching ‘allows schools to relate to the developmental needs of today’s children and young people. It allows them to become aware of the pressures teachers are experiencing, both in terms of the difficulty of managing heterogeneous classes with different cultures and the demands placed on them by school governance and the constant need to evaluate performance, which risks distracting them from their ability to see and welcome their pupils.”

Presenting the latest data from the WHO and national and international research, the professor paints a picture of an increasingly fragile childhood and adolescence, with problems of overweight and obesity, loneliness, increased mood vulnerability, and few opportunities to be outdoors and in contact with others. On the other hand, the 2018 OECD Pisa survey highlights how the current school system, in which the traditional model prevails, is unable to achieve the desired results.

Putting the well-being of children and adolescents back at the centre of any education policy aimed at promoting learning therefore also means taking action on the spaces in which schooling takes place, and this is not neutral as it has a potential knock-on effect: it implies a change in the time required for their use, a rethinking of content and methodologies and, above all, it requires a change in the attitude of teachers, who, inhabiting spaces other than those they are used to for teaching, put themselves back into play. They focus more on their relationship with their students than on their knowledge to be divided up, simplified and transmitted.

And students benefit from this. To support this thesis, we provide some conclusions from research carried out in various parts of the world:

• Several studies show that students who participate in outdoor lessons and activities achieve better academic results than those who participate in classroom-only lessons and activities. (taken from: California Student Assessment Project Phase Two: The effects of Environment-Based Education on Student Achievement. SEER: Poway, CA).
• Students engaged in educational activities in nature are less likely to disturb others and become distracted than those engaged in classroom activities (taken from: Barros, R.M., Silver, E. J., & Stein, R.E.K. (2009). School recess and group classroom behaviour. Pediatrics, 123 (2), 431-436).
• Students who participate in nature activities learn to communicate more effectively with their peers (taken from American Institutes for Research. (2005). Effects of Outdoor Education Programmes for Children in California. American Institutes for Research: Palo Alto, CA).
• Students faced with a ‘real’ problem to be solved in nature are able to find solutions more easily than with a problem described in the classroom. (taken from Burdette, Hillary L.; M.D., M.S.; and Robert C. Whitaker, M.D., M.P.H. Resurrecting Free Play in Young Children: Looking Beyond Fitness and Fatness to Attention, Affiliation and Affect. 2005 American Medical Association)
• Even children with attention deficits improve their concentration: for them, too, nature represents something real and curious (taken from: Faber Taylor, A., & Kuo, F. E. (2008). Children with attention deficits concentrate better after a walk in the park. Journal of Attention Disorders Online).
  The environment fundamentally determines how and with what results we learn and share our knowledge. And in the shadow of climate change, environmental education has become perhaps the most important area of modern pedagogy if humanity is to survive the coming decades and centuries.

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In recent years in Italy, school architecture has been at the centre of a more general reflection on the role of schools in current society. And this is why IAL Toscana, together with other partners of the European project called LEARNITECT – Meeting of Innovative Learning Design and Inclusive Learning Spaces, works to map and collect good practices in school building and furnishing. 

Written by: Claudia Fabbrini, Alice Lepore, Gabriella Pusztai, IAL Toscana