Research Category Outdoor School

Baseline Sustainability Awareness Among Children in 2025

This paper presents the 2025 baseline profile of sustainability awareness among K1 and K2 children, based on a validated assessment tool measuring reasoning across six environmental domains. Findings show that children demonstrate foundational sustainability understanding from K1, with K2 children consistently offering deeper eco-centric reasoning. Domain-level analyses highlight developmental shifts in the sophistication of children’s explanations, with older children demonstrating clearer cause and effect reasoning, stronger environmental empathy, and more abstract conceptual links. These findings reaffirm the developmental nature of sustainability thinking and highlight the importance of intentional, integrated sustainability education practices.

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The Effects of Outdoor School Programmes on the Resiliency of Five Year Olds

This study looked at the effects of Outdoor School (OSS) programmes on the resiliency of five-year-olds by examining children’s mastery motivation. Mastery motivation reflects children’s willingness to engage in moderately challenging tasks, persisting in an independent focused manner.

A mixed-methods approach with teacher questionnaire ratings for children before and after their programme, in-field observations, and child-friendly interviews with drawings was used.

The results showed children demonstrated improvements in persisting with tasks, taking on challenges, and approaching problems with increased competence. Qualitative findings complemented these results, children integrated their experiential learning into their drawings and narratives, and effectively reflected developing personal strategies to problem-solve moderately challenging tasks.

Overall, the study demonstrates that OSS programmes foster children’s mastery motivation and resilience, support broader developmental outcomes, and underscores the value of experiential outdoor experiences in early childhood.

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