Debunking the Myths: Importance of Outdoor Education for Children

Certain things do not come in the curriculum. But as educators, it is our responsibility to comprehend what works best for our children. The usual, conventional teaching methods allow your children to understand what’s written in the book. But it doesn’t support overall personality development, which is crucial for a growing child.

Research says that outside education increases student’s physical, mental, and social health. Teaching outside the classroom, you’ll give your students a good opportunity to explore the world around them. They’ll engage and learn to explore the world while gaining confidence and many such skills improving their personality traits.  

You can further explore the benefits of outdoor learning in detail. Listed below are some of the proven benefits of the same.

Benefits of Outdoor Learning

1. Improve Social & Communication Skills

When you give your children the freedom to learn, they tend to develop better social and communication skills. That’s because they interact, explore things, and seek answers communicating with each other.

Teachers should develop programs that inspire the children to interact and communicate more. Not every kid would be naturally social. We need to create opportunities and the natural outdoor setting makes it perfectly possible.

2. Develop Self-awareness, Confidence & Self-Esteem

An outdoor activity is bound to help children develop self-awareness. With self-awareness, they will automatically have improved confidence.

Becoming self-aware is that a child is able to understand himself. Confidence is one such skill that is non-negotiable. So when a child learns about his strengths and weaknesses, he would not allow his emotions to influence his normal activities.   

Suppose he gets angry or frustrated about something, he would learn to take control of his emotions with confidence.

3. Decreases Stress & Anxiety

Outdoor learning implies fewer rules and restrictions. That means you are allowing children to enjoy their personal space. It is one of the best ways to de-stress them.

Busy schedules and hectic curriculum does impact the mental health of children. More schools should adopt the concept of outdoor learning. The children need this as much as anyone. Disadvantaged anxious children will definitely benefit from this.

As per the reports from Bright Futures, Georgetown University’s health promotion initiative for children, a child’s mental health can improve with regular physical activity. Not just that, it will also decrease the symptoms of depression.

4. Help them Improve Gross-Motor Skills

Gross motor skills involve the use of large muscles of arms, legs, and torso in a coordinated and controlled manner.

Generally, a child with gross motor difficulties does not find it easy in performing normal physical activities. Even doing everyday functions will be a big task for them. It can be as simple as walking, jumping, or doing some other physical activities.

Getting to learn in the outside area, children with such difficulties will easily develop their gross motor skills and participate better in all the physical activities.

5. Boosts Learning Abilities

The Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) in Spain conducted a study on 1500 children and found that children who grow up close to parks and green spaces are likelier to develop better attention span.

The diverse learning process gives broader learning opportunities. Children tend to get more engaged and respond better to the challenges and tasks than they used do within the four walls. Perhaps doing more number of outdoor activities, your children would learn and implement things better in their everyday life.

Children today spend time indoors more than their predecessors used to do. It is essential we transform our educational practices so children would engage more with the outside world and have continued overall development.