Passive and active engagement in nature supports children’s social-emotional health and well-being. When schools take their classes and programs outside into environments where nature is present—on their school grounds or in local parks—they are placing students in spaces that support their social-emotional health and well-being. Outdoor learning also often includes hands-on curricula, which also supports children’s social interaction skills, confidence building, problem solving, independence, negotiation skills, and creativity.

Unstructured nature play can enhance children’s social and emotional development. Outdoor learning offers positive benefits for children identified with social, emotional, and/or behavioral conditions including increased pro-social behavior and social well-being. Limited opportunities to engage in outdoor learning negatively impact children’s group social play and interaction.

And time matters. Fewer, longer sessions of outdoor learning (education outside the classroom) are more beneficial than more frequent, shorter sessions and lead to improved pro-social behaviors among students.

Blended learning that combines traditional education with forest school or other models of outdoor curricula enhances children’s social interaction skills, builds confidence, promotes problem-solving and independence, builds negotiation skills, and supports creativity. The relationship between teachers and children is more collaborative outdoors, which is further influenced by teachers’ own positive childhood experiences with the outdoors.

Living close to and being in nature can buffer children’s social skills as well as improve pro-social environmental attitudes. High levels of exposure to outdoor green space may improve children’s pro-social behaviors such as cooperating, sharing, and comforting. Children report increased social connectivity and decreased peer conflict after engaging in greened schoolyards. Plus, early experiences with school gardening programs are associated with increased prosocial environmental attitudes. 

Engagement in environmental education and increased access to nature-based programs can improve overall health-related quality of life and increase family support among youth who are systemically under-resourced and black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC). Opportunities to engage in education outside the classroom can lead to the inclusion of systemically under-resourced and BIPOC students who may be at risk of exclusion in schoolwork and school life. Among these students, increased education outside the classroom inversely correlates with decreased symptoms of inattention and hyperactivity and adverse peer interactions.