Teacher’s Perceptions of Outdoor Experiential Education in Seattle Public Middle Schools

Abstract

This study looks at the issue of Outdoor education and how teachers perceive its effectiveness in the Seattle Public School system. Outdoor education is a school activity that takes place outside school buildings but is undertaken in a variety of types and settings, as teachers may take students to schoolyards, school grounds, forests, beaches, farms, or gardens. In 2020, Seattle Public Schools expressed urgency in expanding the accessibility of outdoor education in the district in their board resolution (SPS Board Resolution No. 2020/21-4.2, 2021). The Washington state legislature subsequently signed a bill into law that establishes grant funding for outdoor education across the state (Establishing the Outdoor School for All Program, 2022). While there are many studies that document the benefits of outdoor education for students (American Institutes for Research, 2005; Kuo et al., 2018; Dyment and Bell, 2007, 2008; Gibbons et al., 2018), there are still open questions about what teachers believe hinder or support their opportunities to provide outdoor education. This is especially of interest for a city like Seattle, which has notorious cases of access to “greener” areas being divided along lines of race and income (Locke et al., 2021; Mayor & Mapes, 2014).