Outdoor Encounters in Nature as a Promoter for Environmental Consciousness of Primary School Students from their Teachers' Perspectives

Abstract: With the growing environmental concern, outdoor education has been looked at recently as one of the instruments that provoke environmental consciousness in an attempt to alleviate the ecological crises. The outdoor natural places are evidenced to have numerous affordances for children, one of which is raising their environmental consciousness, but what is the formula required for attaining this? This study aimed at exploring how outdoor activities in nature reinforce the young students' environmental consciousness, from their teachers’ perspectives. Thirteen primary school Swedish teachers from five national and international primary schools in Sweden were recruited conveniently as a representative sample for this thesis study. Data was collected through qualitative semi-structured interviews, then analyzed using the hermeneutic thematic analysis. The study findings showed the perceived affordances of outdoor education in regard to environmentalism, and the factors of the optimum implementation of outdoor activities in natural settings. The teachers' accounts manifested that outdoor encounters in nature allow experiential learning and enhance the young students' environmental consciousness in terms of their ecological literacy, connectedness to nature, appreciation for nature, positive attitudes toward nature, and prospective pro-environmental behaviour. Moreover, the teachers highlighted the necessity of pedagogical guidance accompanying the outdoor activities in nature, in terms of clear environment-oriented curriculum goals, environment-related content, motivated teacher guiding discussions, and modelling pro-environmental behaviour.