Seminar on Outdoor Education, Landscape and Outdoor Venues in Iceland

Islandija1
Outdoor learning – a great way to acquire knowledge

As a part of the Erasmus+ project for teachers, two teachers from St. Stanislav’s Institution, The Alojzij Šuštar Primary School took part in a seminar entitled Outdoor Education, Landscape and Outdoor Venues – Learning under Open Sky, which was held in Iceland between 16th – 23rd May 2015. There were 14 participating teachers from Finland, France, Austria, Poland, Greece and Slovenia.

Theoretical foundations of outdoor education gave us an insight into the importance of outdoor learning, whereas practical experiences obtained encouraged us to conduct more classes outdoors. Since at the Alojzij Šuštar Primary School we strive to conduct as many classes as possible outdoors, we embraced the programme enthusiastically. Examples of team building, presentation of venues that the Icelanders use for teaching outdoors, visiting a primary school, cooking in the woods and making handicrafts using natural materials are some of the many examples of good practice that we will not forget and try to apply in Slovenia as well.

At a teacher conference at the Alojzij Šuštar Primary School we gave a lecture on what we had learnt in Iceland to our colleagues. In addition, we also held a workshop on experiential learning at an international conference on outdoor education that was organised at our primary school on 10th October 2015. /Maja Čuk, Nuša Arnež/