How can we make outdoor learning part of everyday teaching, whatever our surroundings or the weather?
Learn the principles behind Nordic outdoor education, live online, and put them into practice in your own school.
Across the Nordic region, outdoor learning is part of everyday educational practice. Forests, parks, playgrounds and urban spaces become places for exploration, discovery and learning, even when the weather is far from perfect.
But bringing learning outdoors involves more than moving a classroom activity outside. Teachers need to understand what makes an outdoor experience educationally worthwhile, how to connect it to the curriculum and how to work confidently with the spaces, resources and conditions available to them.
Learn how to make outdoor learning educationally worthwhile in the spaces and weather you actually have.
This course brings Nordic outdoor learning expertise directly to you, wherever you teach.
Across six live online sessions, you’ll examine the ideas and practices that have shaped outdoor education across the Nordic region. You’ll consider how teachers use their surroundings to support curiosity, independence, collaboration and meaningful learning, and what makes these approaches effective.
You’ll then turn your attention to your own school. Through practical tasks between sessions, you’ll investigate local opportunities, design outdoor learning experiences and try them with your pupils. You’ll bring your observations back to the group, learn from other educators and refine your approach.
The aim is to help you understand the principles, gain confidence in applying them and develop outdoor learning practices that work in your context, with your pupils, your curriculum and your local environment.
Starts 2 February 2027
6 sessions: 2, 9, 16 and 23 February, 2 and 9 March 2027
Online
Starts 7 September 2027
6 sessions: 7, 14, 21 and 28 September, 5 and 12 October 2027
Online
Registering interest is free. A course run is confirmed once at least six participants have registered their interest. Until then, neither a place nor a course run is guaranteed. Booking terms →
Run the course with your own staff, on your own dates.
Session 1
What outdoor learning is, and what research tells us.
Session 2
How place, movement, inquiry and curriculum create meaningful learning.
Session 3
Routines, boundaries, inclusion and risk-benefit thinking outside.
Session 4
What happened when your plans met real learners.
Session 5
Progression and curriculum integration in everyday teaching.
Session 6
Evidence from the cohort and a sustainable plan for you.
Every course we run is built on what research says makes professional learning change practice. Here is what that looks like in this one.
Live sessions provide research, theory and pedagogical models.
Between sessions you investigate and apply ideas in your own setting.
A small inquiry group shares evidence and experience across different contexts.
Repeated cycles of action, evidence, reflection and next iteration.
A repeated cycle of input, inquiry, action, evidence, reflection and next iteration. Live sessions provide research, theory, pedagogical models and professional dialogue. Between sessions, participants investigate and apply ideas in their own setting, supported by a small, consistent inquiry group of teachers working in different contexts.
Outdoor learning has a long and varied place within Nordic educational traditions, but this course is not about exporting a Scandinavian model. Nordic practice provides one source of ideas and evidence through which we examine broader questions about place, experience, learner agency and the relationship between learning and the world beyond the classroom. Participants are encouraged to interrogate these ideas and adapt them to their own educational, cultural and environmental context.
EUR 510 per participant, excl. VAT
Six 90-minute live online sessions, course materials, a certificate of attendance and follow-up resources.
Nick Praulins is co-founder of The Nordic Learning Company, where he leads our work with schools and educators, shaping the learning philosophy, pedagogy and programme design behind its education practice.
View profile →Marius Ketels is co-founder of The Nordic Learning Company, where he leads much of our work with companies and organisations, designing and facilitating programmes around leadership, teams and human performance.
View profile →You can move to another date or send a colleague at no cost. If you cancel more than four weeks before the start, we keep 30% of the fee; inside four weeks, we keep the full fee. If we cancel, you choose a full refund or another date.
What you’ll leave with
An Outdoor Learning Practice Record: a working account of your designs, evidence and next steps.
Pairs well with
Experience outdoor learning in Sweden, understand the pedagogy behind it, and develop an approach that works in your own school.
Helping mentors have better conversations with students
Build a student-leadership programme that helps your school create meaningful routes for students to contribute.
EUR 510 per participant, excl. VAT
Starts 2 February 2027
