FEATURE FOCUS: OUTDOOR LEARNING
Giving everyone the chance to engage with nature
HavIt’s an exciting time for all of us at the Field Studies Council as we celebrate our 80th anniversary.
For the founding members of the Field Studies Council to have had this vision and this legacy about engaging with the environment was crucial.
The future is about continuing to work with our partners to make sure outdoor learning experiences are still very much part of the curriculum and bringing all the associated benefits to young people.
T
he pandemic drove home the importance of getting outdoors and engaging with nature – and the Field Studies Council, which celebrates its 80th anniversary in 2023, is working harder than ever to make sure everyone gets the opportunity to do just that. In our first feature this month looking at outdoor learning, the FSC’s Head of education Scott Wycherley looks forward to the next 80 years.
We are the UK’s leading environmental education charity and now run 14 field centres around the country, as well as additional urban learning locations in London and Birmingham. I think it’s important that we continue to lead the sector and set the standard, focused on high quality residential experience but also increasing those opportunities closer to home with day visits, outreach work and our digital offering, which allows us to increase our reach across many different schools and different areas. An education that prepares students for the future is essential, and that has to be balanced – a mixture of knowledge, skills and experiences that allows them to think and to apply their learning. Environmental education shouldn’t just sit in geography, or biology, or natural history, but across the curriculum. STEM subjects have got a massive part to play.
The jobs that young people are going to go 26
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into probably don’t exist yet, which is really scary but also really exciting. I think there will be lots of opportunities for young people, and lots of opportunities to take the right path. We are going to need some skilled individuals with a broad, holistic, longer term, bigger thinking than we might have had in the past. We want people engaging with the environment on any scale, and fieldwork and outdoor learning is a medium to starting that journey.
Lockdown brought more people back to their natural areas, which was really positive to see. The advantage of getting young people into those environments is huge.
Extensive research over the years confirms that outdoor learning can have enormous positive benefits for children and young people, both in terms of their academic outcomes and their mental health and wellbeing.
We are committed to getting pupils outdoors. Someone joked with me when I left my last job that I was going to see students who had never seen a sheep – and I’ve seen it.
In 2016, Natural England found that more than one in nine children had not set foot in a park, forest, beach or other natural environment for at least 12 months. That’s scary.
I am excited by the role we have to play in helping young people to learn about and enjoy the natural world, but we are also very mindful of the financial pressures schools are under which
May 2023
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