“ Philosophy and outdoor education turn the landscape into a space of discovery in which you read yourself and the world ”

For children, being outside the school building means above all moving freely, running, exploring and playing. The new volume Outdoor education with philosophy offers activities to do outdoors to allow children to practice, to observe and interpret nature, the landscape and themselves in an active way and with greater awareness. Designing outdoor educational activities requires imagining situations capable of fostering reflective relationships with the surrounding environment, with oneself and with others, in a more articulated and more complex way than children would be capable of spontaneously.

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Structure of the book

The experiences from which the book originates suggest that philosophical conversation and outdoor education can feed each other, transforming the landscape around the school into an extraordinary space of discovery in which to practice getting to know oneself and the world.

Why and in what sense does philosophy have to do with it? Philosophy has something to do with it because it gives voice and impulse to the reflexive relationship of human beings with nature and with themselves and because, intertwined from the very beginning with other fields of knowledge and human creativity (from literature to science, from history to art), and fueled by the emotion of “wonder”, it can inspire questions, doubts and hypotheses that cross the traditional disciplinary boundaries.

34 outdoor educational activities

The book offers 34 outdoor educational activities, divided into 4 macro areas and designed to invite children to “learn beyond” what they already know (or think to know) to relate hypotheses and intuitions never thought of before:

Thoughts to explore
7 activities suggest questions about forms and transformations of nature and the world around us, looking at the visible with new eyes and going in search of the invisible

Observation techniques
10 activities propose to explore the landscape with a critical eye, learning to decipher its signs, stories and hidden possibilities “between the lines”

Learning about the landscape in the landscape
10 activities remind us how to live in nature with respect, nurturing the sense of limits and sensitivity to connections, so lacking in our species and so essential for the challenges of the 2030 Agenda

Creativity exercises
7 activities help to recognize the innumerable connections between art, nature and landscapes, stimulating individual and group creativity

the idea to start: here is the starting point of each activity, with the fundamental questions from which to set up the philosophical conversations and research to be done outdoors

outdoor activities: descriptions of the activities to be proposed outdoors

how to document: suggestions on how the proposed activities could be documented

collaboration: suggestions for involving families or other stakeholders in the community (libraries, museums, associations, etc.) in the activities

connections: connections with topics traditionally studied in school or with other chapters of the book, with cues to accompany conversations and to reflect on what is being done in multiple directions

other sources: indications of other sources (books, picture books, websites, etc.) that could be consulted to deepen and expand the proposed activities