Welcome

Welcome to the National Outdoor Learning Initiative’s free online resource library, designed to help schools and school districts across the United States green their school grounds and move their classes and programs outside. Developing outdoor spaces makes our school systems more resilient and better able to pivot quickly when challenges, such as the pandemic, arise. Access to nature on school grounds reduces stress, improves mental and physical health, and helps students engage with their academic work across the curriculum and grade levels. Plus, being outside helps children and adults feel happier! Please help us share this library widely!

Explore the Library

The National Outdoor Learning Library is divided into nine main sections by topic, as shown below. Click on the grey buttons below to access the landing page for each chapter and the associated articles and resources on that theme. If you would prefer to navigate the library in list format, please click here for the Comprehensive Table of Contents.

If you are wondering where to begin, you may want to start your library visit with a guided tour. We recommend that school district staff members who would like ideas about how to set up city-scale programs start with our School District Pathway, which has been curated with this goal in mind. Similarly, principals, teachers, parents, and students will find a concise collection of key resources designed for “school scale planning” in our School Start-up Toolkit.

We also invite you to explore the video recordings from in our free, biweekly Community of Practice for Schools and Districts Moving Learning Outside. We held 51 meetings of this Community of Practice during the pandemic, from June 2020 to May 2022. In November 2022 we relaunched the live portion of this program with a new theme: Schoolyard Forests! In 2023, we will be meeting monthly for the new Community of Practice for Schoolyard Forests. We hope you will join us to meet colleagues from around the country, ask questions, share your work, and learn from everyone’s experience. Click here to register (free).