This project is part of the STERF programme ‘Multifunctional use of golf facilities and ecosystem services’ focusing the golf course as a pedagogic tool. Golf courses could improve teaching by offering a variety of green surfaces for teaching outdoors.
One pilot school with 15 teachers has been part of the outdoor education intervention and training at the golf area in Motala, Sweden. The outdoor course has developed learning tools and implemented knowledge and skills connected to the Swedish curriculum in subjects like geography, languages, mathematics, technology, ecology and biology in the golf area. The activity and reflection have been documented by teachers in a school blog. The primary school in Motala is using teaching material from the outdoor course.
As a teacher and researcher, AS has made a first study on teachers’ experience in the area of outdoor education with open questions. The teachers say that they can see the advantage of the outdoor learning situation to support indoor learning in the classroom. However, it takes time for some teachers and the pupils to understand that the outdoor environment is an outdoor learning environment. The phenomeno-graphical study with interviews was followed up by research questions after the outdoor education intervention course finished in June 2018.
The pedagogic model and rucksack that we have developed, with items like magnifiers, some security equipment and hand-out material for outdoor learning in water, forest and other places close to the golf area, is available today as a project outcome. The golf club contributed knowledge about the golf area on occasions when school classes visited with their teachers in autumn 2019, covering many subjects in the Swedish curriculum (Lgr11). There is also a video production released by STERF in both a Swedish and UK version. The learning activities are recorded together with teachers when we meet for reflection about the outdoor didactic questions: Where, when, what, how and why. The teaching material is also linked to two key books on the subject that we have written: ‘Utomhuspedagogik som kunskapskälla – närmiljö blir lärmiljö’, Studentlitteratur, Lund (2007 anthology) and ‘Friluftlivets Pedagogik – En miljö och utomhus pedagogik för kunskap, känsla och livskvalitet’, Liber Läromdel (4:e upplagan).
