A school can genuinely believe in outdoor learning and still make it surprisingly difficult for teachers to get outside. Most educators I know do not need another presentation convincing them that children benefit from opportunities to move, explore, notice, wonder and learn beyond four walls. Many already want to create more of those opportunities. Whether the school around them makes that work possible is a separate question.
If taking a class outside regularly means that an individual teacher has to independently navigate supervision, weather, accessibility, equipment, schedules, curriculum expectations, risk procedures and the needs of thirty different learners, outdoor learning can quickly become something we value in principle but struggle to sustain in practice. At that point, motivation is only part of the picture. The conditions around the teacher are doing a lot of the work too.
Research into outdoor learning in Canadian schools has been pointing in this direction for some time. Educator confidence and experience are part of the picture alongside principal support, school and district policies, funding, resources, curriculum expectations, schedules, school culture and the physical environment.[1]
More recent Canadian research examining how outdoor learning can be expanded across public education continues to identify institutional and process-based barriers and emphasizes the need to involve educators, administrators and policy-makers when thinking about implementation at scale.[2]
We can have teachers who believe deeply in outdoor learning and still place them inside structures that make it difficult to do.
I have seen this pattern with plenty of good ideas in schools. Usually, someone gets excited. They try something, learn through experience, collect supplies, solve problems, figure out what works and become the person everybody else asks. That kind of leadership helps schools move forward because educators are willing to experiment, learn and share what they discover.
The challenge is what happens next. If outdoor learning disappears when that teacher changes grades, moves schools, takes a leave or simply no longer has the capacity to carry it, then outdoor learning was never fully built into the school. We benefited from an enthusiastic educator.
Those educators are still essential. The work becomes more sustainable when the conditions around them make it easier for others to join, adapt and continue. Leadership has work to do here.
Before asking teachers to do more, make the work easier to carry
Teachers are already making hundreds of decisions every day. They are thinking about individual student needs, transitions, supervision, assessment, family communication, behaviour, safety, curriculum and everything unexpected that walks through the classroom door before 9:00 a.m. Then we tell them outdoor learning is valuable and encourage them to do more of it.
That encouragement can be completely sincere while still leaving a teacher thinking, “Okay, but how?” Leadership can help answer that question by looking closely at the conditions around the work instead of adding another initiative or another binder.
Are expectations around taking students outside clear? Do teachers understand which spaces they can use and how they can use them? Does everyone have to create their own weather plan? Is there basic equipment available somewhere, or does outdoor learning depend on what individual teachers have bought, borrowed or collected? Have staff had opportunities to think about accessibility, sensory needs and participation outdoors? When a teacher has a reasonable question about supervision or risk, is there somewhere clear to take it? Are educators given opportunities to learn from colleagues who already have experience teaching outside?
At the board or system level, there is another layer to consider. Are policies helping educators use outdoor spaces thoughtfully, or unintentionally adding enough uncertainty that staying inside becomes the easier choice?
None of these questions are especially glamorous, but they shape whether teachers can actually do the work. In practice, sustainability often comes from ordinary decisions that reduce friction. A shared set of expectations can save twenty teachers from independently trying to interpret the same issue. A small collection of communal equipment can remove another obstacle. Time for an experienced teacher to work alongside a colleague can build confidence far more effectively than another reminder to get outside. A clear answer to a question about risk can turn “I’m not sure we’re allowed to do that” into “Okay, we can make this work.”
Take Me Outside’s strategic plan takes that wider view. Their work includes supporting educators who are curious about outdoor learning, building communities of educators already doing the work, and collaborating with school-system administrators to better understand and remove barriers.[3] That systems-level focus is useful because there is a limit to how far any educational practice can spread when its success depends on individual people repeatedly overcoming the same obstacles.
Teachers will always bring creativity, courage and initiative to schools. Schools benefit from that leadership. Good systems do something with what those educators learn. They make the path clearer for the next person, share resources, clarify expectations, notice unnecessary barriers, create opportunities for people to learn from each other, and make participation possible for more students and more educators.
Over time, outdoor learning becomes part of the school rather than something associated with a few particular teachers.
Outdoor learning does not become sustainable because every teacher suddenly becomes an outdoor-learning expert. It becomes more sustainable when teachers no longer have to figure out every part of it alone.
Structure is what makes participation possible outdoors
Sometimes when we talk about outdoor learning, the picture becomes very romantic. Students are exploring, moving, playing, noticing, wondering and learning in a more open environment. Those things can absolutely happen. So can conflict, uncertainty, competing needs and a child yelling from across the field, “He says I can’t go there!” The classroom community comes outside with us.
That tension helps clarify what structure is for. It should protect safety and participation without closing down the possibilities of being outside.
Outside, some of the assumptions of the classroom disappear. Students start asking different questions. Can we run here? Can I climb that? How far can I go? What if I do not want to participate in this activity? What if someone wants rough play and I do not want to be touched? What happens when one person’s exploration affects someone else’s safety?
Adults still hold responsibility for safety. There are decisions in schools that students cannot and should not be expected to carry. But there is a great deal of room between adults deciding everything and students deciding everything, and that space is where meaningful student voice can live.
A class can talk together about what people need to feel safe in a space, where someone might need room, how boundaries will be communicated, what respectful play looks like, which areas are open for exploration and what happens when an agreement stops working. When students help build the agreements that shape their learning community, a boundary can become something that protects another person’s ability to participate rather than simply another instruction from an adult. A conversation about safety can include responsibility. A disagreement can become an opportunity to practise listening, negotiation and repair.
That is still structure. It is simply structure with a purpose.
At the classroom level, that might look like shared agreements. At the school level, it might mean common expectations for outdoor spaces. At the system level, it can mean policies that give educators enough clarity to make thoughtful professional decisions. Across all three levels, the structure should make participation and safety easier without creating so much friction that the easiest option is always to stay inside.
Sustainability is also an equity question
This becomes an equity issue too. When outdoor learning relies on one educator’s confidence, personal collection of supplies, knowledge of risk procedures or ability to solve every logistical problem, access becomes uneven. Some students happen to land in classrooms where outdoor learning is part of the culture. Others may rarely experience it at all.
Recent Canadian research makes this scaling question explicit. Outdoor learning remains far from systematically implemented across public education, and researchers have argued that expanding access requires participation across multiple levels, including students, families, educators, administrators, policy-makers and community organizations.[2] Equitable access cannot be built by asking individual teachers to solve system-level problems one classroom at a time.
Equity will look different from school to school and child to child. Students bring different mobility, sensory, communication and support needs into outdoor spaces just as they do indoors. Schools themselves have different grounds, neighbourhoods, resources and access to green space. Making room for outdoor learning means building enough flexibility and support that educators can respond thoughtfully to those differences instead of treating them as reasons not to begin.
A sustainable system does not standardize the experience. It makes participation possible for more people.
The schoolyard can show us things the classroom sometimes misses
A change in environment can change what becomes visible to us. The student who rarely speaks during a whole-class discussion may suddenly have something to contribute outside. A child who struggles to sit still through a long lesson may become deeply engaged when movement is part of the learning. Students may notice things adults did not anticipate, use a space differently than we imagined or identify a boundary or problem we had not considered.
None of that means every outdoor experience will be peaceful, easy or transformative. Research into school-led nature interventions is encouraging, but it is also a good reminder not to make sweeping promises. A 2024 systematic review of 19 studies found some evidence of benefits in areas including positive affect, physical activity and social relationships or interactions, while also noting that the evidence base is still developing.[4]
That is a useful way for schools to approach this work. Outdoor learning can be worthwhile without being asked to solve every problem in education. We can value the possibilities it creates without turning it into another cure-all.
Those possibilities need to be available often enough for educators and students to learn from them. A practice cannot become part of school culture if every attempt at it feels like starting from zero.
A simple sustainability test
There is a simple question I would use when thinking about outdoor learning in a school: If the teacher who currently takes students outside most often left tomorrow, what would remain?
Would other staff still know how to use the spaces? Would expectations still be clear? Would people know where the resources were? Would teachers know where to take reasonable questions about supervision or risk? Would students still have opportunities to help shape how outdoor spaces are used? Would learning outside still appear in conversations about teaching and learning?
A string of no answers simply shows where the next work is.
The next move might be clearer guidance, shared equipment, time to learn alongside a colleague who already feels comfortable outside, or a staff conversation that reveals everyone has been operating under a rule that is not actually a rule. Students might need to be part of creating common outdoor agreements. None of those changes is dramatic on its own, but school improvement is often built through exactly these kinds of small structural decisions.
School leaders can help without becoming outdoor-learning experts themselves. They can listen to the educators already doing the work, ask what keeps getting in the way, make expectations clearer, create space for people to learn from one another, involve students in shaping the communities they learn in and remove unnecessary friction when they find it.
There will always be teachers who lead the way, and schools benefit from their experience.
Leadership can help turn what those teachers have learned into something colleagues can use and continue.
Making room is the work
We spend a lot of time asking whether teachers are ready to take learning outside. We could ask the system the same question: Is it ready to support the educators who want to?
Making room for outdoor learning still involves structure and clear expectations. The work is to look honestly at whether our schedules, policies, resources, professional learning and everyday leadership decisions make the practice easier to sustain or harder than it needs to be.
A practice that depends on extraordinary persistence is fragile. It becomes easier to sustain when the system learns from the people already doing the work and removes some of the obstacles around them.
Later this October, I’ll be carrying this question into conversations with school-system leaders at Take Me Outside’s Outdoor Learning Leadership Conference in Banff, where the focus includes embedding outdoor learning into policy, strategic planning, operations, professional learning and system-wide practice.[5] The conversation I want to have is about what can change around educators so that their interest in outdoor learning has somewhere to go.
Outdoor learning becomes more sustainable when getting outside stops requiring exceptional effort from a few people and becomes an ordinary possibility for more teachers and students.
What can we change inside the system that would make going outside easier?
References
[1] Oberle, E., Zeni, M., Munday, F., & Brussoni, M. (2021). Support Factors and Barriers for Outdoor Learning in Elementary Schools: A Systemic Perspective. American Journal of Health Education, 52(5), 251–265. https://doi.org/10.1080/19325037.2021.1955232
[2] Simpson, E., Donison, L., Zeni, M., de Lannoy, L., Matheson, K., Buxton, R., & Halsall, T. (2026). Applying Diverse Participatory Approaches to Co-Produce Research Impacts Within Outdoor Learning. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 25. https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069261457199
[3] Take Me Outside. (2025). Strategic Plan 2025–2027. https://takemeoutside.ca/strategic-plan/
[4] Ly, V., & Vella-Brodrick, D. A. (2024). Effects of School-led Greenspace Interventions on Mental, Physical and Social Wellbeing in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review. Educational Psychology Review, 36, 133. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-024-09963-1
[5] Take Me Outside. (2026). Outdoor Learning Leadership Conference. https://takemeoutside.ca/leadership-conference/
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