Syntes: Pulido et al. (2025) — a scoping review of 41 outdoor-teaching studies finds learning gains look promising but are not pooled

Källa: Pulido, L., Pépin, A., Bergeron-Leclerc, C., Cherblanc, J., Godue-Couture, C., Laprise, C., Paquette, L., Nadeau-Tremblay, S. & Simard, S. (2025). The Effects of Outdoor Teaching on Academic Achievement and Its Associated Factors—A Scoping Review. Education Sciences 15(8), 1060. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci15081060

Verified content

• [abstract] Scoping review: 2,362 records screened; 41 studies involving 10,453 students from preschool to college were analysed for provenance, intervention type, design and outcomes.
• [abstract] "The analyses suggest that outdoor teaching appears to improve learning in sciences, reading, writing, social studies and mathematics." It also "seems to support" self-awareness, school climate, motivation and well-being.
• [abstract] The authors call outdoor teaching "a promising pedagogical approach" and ask for more work on long-term effects across more subjects and competences.

Limits

• [assessment] Abstract only this run (the open-access page returned 403 from the box). A scoping review, not a meta-analysis: no pooled effect size, so it cannot test C28's "about half a standard deviation". Ages run from preschool to college, wider than C28.

Why it is in the library

A 2025 map of regular outdoor teaching and achievement, covering more studies than Becker et al. 2017 (13 studies up to 2016). It points the same way as C28 without giving a pooled size, and it notes that long-term effects are still thin.

Added 2026-11-08 by the project (weekly source sweep, kind: new; read: abstract). [abstract] = from the published abstract; [full text] = read in the full text; [assessment] = the project's own assessment.

Full-text notes (read 2026-11-08, nightly attacks)

• [full text] Scoping review, no pooled effect sizes. 41 studies (2001–2024), 10,453 students.
• [full text] Table 2: Otte et al. 2019a maths, 619 pupils aged 9–13, 9 months, >5 h a week outdoors: "neither positive nor negative effect on mathematic skills"; Davis et al. 2023 garden cluster RCT, 1,400 pupils aged 9–10: reading up in grade 4, no improvement in maths or reading in grade 5; Faber Taylor et al. 2022: same learning in classroom and nature settings.
• [full text] Discussion: effects "mainly measured immediately after short-term interventions, or during the school year for long-term interventions"; whether benefits last is an open question.
• [assessment] Bears on C28's durability prong and on open question 23; not used as an attack (scoping review, no pooled estimate).