Peer-reviewed article
Outdoor Learning in Early Childhood Education : A Narrative Review
Eila Lindfors, Marja‐Leena Rönkkö, Leena Kiviranta, Virpi Yliverronen, Saija Tanhuanpää et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This narrative review examines how outdoor learning environments support early childhood education, particularly through craft, design, and technology activities. The review synthesized 10 peer-reviewed studies and identified six key implementation areas: children's all-around development, well-being, multimodal hands-on learning, nature as a resource, teachers' roles, and organizational factors. The findings suggest outdoor learning enhances children's engagement, motivation, imagination, and play while supporting meaningful learning experiences. The review highlights both opportunities and challenges for implementing outdoor learning in early childhood settings.
Key points
- Outdoor learning environments enhance children's engagement and motivation in different activities
- Outdoor learning enables transformative experiences with imagination and play
- Outdoor learning benefits children's all-around development and well-being
- Nature serves as a valuable resource for craft, design, and technology education
- Teachers play a crucial mediating role in outdoor learning implementation
Limitations
As a narrative review rather than systematic review, this study does not provide a comprehensive or exhaustive synthesis of the literature, and the selection of studies may reflect author bias. The review draws on only 10 studies and does not quantify effects or provide meta-analysis, so it cannot establish the strength of evidence or generalizability of findings across different contexts.
Abstract
Outdoor learning environments can be beneficial in enhancing children’s engagement and motivation in different activities. Outdoor learning environments have the potential to enable transforming and meaningful experiences with imagination and play as well as to evoke ideas for craft, design, and technology education. This study aims to describe outdoor learning implementation in early childhood education based on previous studies. For this, the following research question is addressed: What are the typical opportunities and challenges in implementing outdoor learning in early childhood education? The answer is discussed in accordance with craft, design, and technology education in early childhood. The methodological approach of this study is a narrative review. The data includes 10 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, which were categorized into six categories: All-around development of children, Well-being, Multimodal hands-on learning possibilities, Nature as a resource, Teachers as mediators, and Organization. From the basis of the results, it seems obvious that carrying out CDT projects as outdoor learning would benefit children’s all-around development and well-being as well as enhance their multimodal hands-on learning opportunities. The results can be taken as a basis for researchers to plan an empirical study in outdoor contexts. They can also serve teachers as they plan a technology learning project in an outdoor environment with their younger students and teacher training in outdoor environments.