Biology teacher Felix Spee loves taking his pupils outdoors: ‘Outdoor learning is not just enjoyable – it is essential.’ Photo: Felix Spee Jr.
Felix Spee remembers the lesson well. A third-year class, notoriously difficult, full of restless teenagers who had driven their previous teacher to burnout. Inside the classroom it was chaos. ‘So I thought: I’ll take them outside. Dip nets, identification charts, trays – and off we went to fish in the Amstel. At first there was shrieking and larking about, but gradually they got enthusiastic, started searching, and the learning began.’ Outside, he watched the class dynamics shift. ‘The disruptive pupils were less dominant, and the quiet ones came up to me to ask substantive questions. There was simply more space – purely because we were happily busy outdoors.’
For Spee, a biology teacher at the Berlage Lyceum in Amsterdam, it is crystal clear: biology – and other subjects too – should sometimes be taught outside. Yet it hardly ever happens. ‘Pupils say they may have had ten outdoor lessons in their entire school career. Yet it makes such a difference: their attitude and energy change, whereas traditional lessons can have the opposite effect.’
‘Some teachers think they need to know everything about plants and creatures’
In the four-part podcast series Outdoor Learning, produced by Kletskous Media and concluded on 11 June, Spee discusses the value of outdoor education. Together with colleagues, scientists and pupils, he reflects on what outdoor lessons mean. ‘The idea that teenagers should sit indoors for six hours a day while their bodies are screaming for movement is actually absurd. Outdoor learning is not just enjoyable – it is essential. In the classroom, 80 per cent of what you say is lost. Outside, that may well be true too, but an outdoor lesson is a great deal healthier.’
For his lessons, he draws inspiration from the school’s immediate surroundings – even though that means the concrete-heavy heart of Amsterdam: water surveys with identification charts in the canal, collecting moss or tree bark for microscopy, or ‘botanical graffiti’ with pavement chalk. ‘They head out with an identification booklet and chalk the names of pavement plants they find on the school grounds, which quite literally brightens the place up.’
Physiology
Even with an apparently dry subject like physiology, it can be done outside, says Spee – in winter too: he has pupils do a workout outdoors, after which they measure their heart rate, blood pressure and recovery. ‘It is active and it is concrete. They feel the difference between exertion and rest, so that an abstract topic in a textbook suddenly becomes something they experience with their own bodies.’
So why don’t other teachers do it? ‘A lot of teachers are afraid of losing control,’ Spee thinks. ‘Indoors, everything revolves around classroom management; that is what teachers are trained for and what they are good at. Outside feels unpredictable – a place where pupils will just mess around and dive into the bushes. But it doesn’t have to be like that. My advice: start small, well prepared, and keep the threshold low. Give concrete assignments with clear time frames. Pupils appreciate having tasks and feeling trusted.’
Uncertainty
Another barrier is uncertainty about subject knowledge. ‘Some teachers think they need to know everything about plants and creatures. But that really isn’t necessary. One of my favourite outdoor lessons is about evolution, for example. I scatter a bag of dried chickpeas outside and give pupils different pieces of cutlery: a spoon, a fork, or a knife. Those are their “mouthparts”.’ All the pupils are supposedly the same insect species, he explains, but with different specialisations in their mouthparts. ‘Just like Darwin’s finches, which Darwin studied on the Galápagos Islands.’ Everyone then has to collect as many peas as possible using their mouthpart; only the group with the most peas survives – the rest die.
‘The lesson illustrates the principle of survival of the fittest in a direct and amusing way. They laugh, they call out to each other, but they understand it too. They grasp that it is not about the strongest, but about who is best adapted to the circumstances. And that is precisely the essence of natural selection.’
A turning tide
Via his website veldwerkindestad.nl, Spee shares more than thirty fully worked-out outdoor lessons, including cross-curricular ones. ‘A turning tide seems to be under way. In Scandinavian countries, outdoor education is far more normal. And in the new proposals from SLO (the national expertise centre for the curriculum, ed.), fieldwork is now a compulsory part of the curriculum. That is a gain. Children sometimes seem estranged from nature: they find insects frightening and plants repulsive. All the more important, then, to take them outside and confront them with it. For instance by throwing burdock or cleavers at them, or picking up spiders and showing them.’
He prefers to use digital tools sparingly. ‘Otherwise pupils end up staring at a screen again instead of looking outwards. Learning to observe carefully with a magnifying glass or a sketchbook is far more valuable. Let them draw or describe what they see, because that slows things down and deepens understanding.’
What drives him? ‘The look in pupils’ eyes when they discover something. Those who come up to me genuinely and ask: can’t we do this more often, sir? Then I know: this is why I am in education – for those moments of real curiosity and wonder.’