Discover the educational potentials of leaving the classroom and exploring the surroundings.

Outdoor and Sustainability Education, Master's Programme

Autumn 2024 / Full-time / Linköping

Outdoor and Sustainability Education, Master's Programme, 60 credits

Autumn 2024 / Full-time / Linköping

Outdoor and Sustainability Education, Master's Programme, 60 credits

Autumn 2025 / Full-time / Linköping

Outdoor and Sustainability Education, Master's Programme

Autumn 2025 / Full-time / Linköping

All children deserve the opportunity to learn and reach their full potential. This master’s programme will increase your knowledge about learning processes with a focus on school-based learning, using different modes and methods. The advanced courses in educational science will help teachers and other educators understand how a variety of outdoor environments can be used as resources for learning and knowledge. During the courses you will learn the theoretical backgrounds for using other learning environments than the classroom.

Outdoor education is a diverse field of research and practice. This programme derives from the Scandinavian perspective on outdoor education - the concept of "uteskola", literally meaning outdoor school. In outdoor school the syllabus is taught outdoors on a regular basis in an interplay with indoor learning. You vill broaden your professional expertis as a teacher by training to use outdoor environments for teaching and learning.

Outdoor learning for all ages

You will gain theoretical and practical knowledge on how to teach different school subjects outdoors, in natural as well as urban environments. We explore the city, nature reserves and other green settings, play grounds and school grounds as learning environments. Examples of educational settings come from the entire school system, pre-school up to secondary school. You will also have the possibility to focus on your particular interests and field of practice.

In addition to classroom lectures and seminars, students work in pairs or groups for assignments in outdoor natural and cultural landscapes. All program courses include individually written assignments and you will collect your own empirical data for your thesis.

Provide young people with sustainability skills

One essential question in societies worldwide is how to sustain our planet’s functions and resources and at the same time improve well-being for a growing population. Environmental and sustainability education focusses on possible ways work with the knowledge, skills and values needed for contributing and participating in a sustainable society. Furthermore, the programme explores what research has revealed about the role of nature and green settings for learning and well-being.

As a graduate, you will be able to work with pedagogical development in schools or other educational fields in society. The programme also prepares you for future PhD studies and research.

Syllabus and course details

A detailed syllabus, curriculum, and information on the courses you may take can be found in our study information database via the link below. Entry requirements and tuition information can be found by selecting the drop-down ''Admission requirements''.

Career opportunities

Following the final examination, students will have gained theoretical knowledge and practical experience within the field of outdoor education for working with pedagogical development in schools or other educational fields in society.

Alternatively, students may continue to conduct research leading to a doctoral degree.

Voices about the program 

Why Study Outdoor and Sustainability Education at LiU in Sweden

Ola Uhrqvist, associate professor, talks about the master's program.

Outdoor learning, why take pupils outdoor?

In this webinar, we discuss different aspects of the master’s programme Outdoor and Sustainability Education. This one-year programme will let students discover the educational potentials of leaving the classroom and exploring the surroundings. Recorded in November 2022.

Alumni & student insights

Aristea Kyriakou

“There couldn’t have been a better choice. This was one of the best years of my life! We built a great team of people and I’m still in contact with my friends from Linköping.

It’s one of the leading programmes in Europe in outdoor education. Sweden is a pioneer in this field and the topic is, by its very nature, Swedish… We did so much: we were outdoors a lot, applied the knowledge we had gained from books, built igloos, went cross-country skiing and sledging.

Sweden is a really welcoming country. It embraces everyone and has a really caring system. And the extremely eco-friendly campus, the bicycles and the closeness to nature were really nice. What you study gets applied here every day. If you want to live and experience outdoor education and not just write a piece that sits on the shelf, you should go for this master’s in Linköping.”

Aristea Kyriakou – Greece  PhD student in Scotland




Deepti-Alumnus-Outdoor

 

'This programme turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life. We are not just outdoors doing activities, the course is well designed.

Now I organize nature camps for urban kids based out of Bangalore; I take them to the forests in the Western Ghats. Additionally, I raise funds to conduct research on integrating outdoor pedagogy in government primary schools located in rural and tribal areas.''

Deepti  India  Co-founder of Happily Outdoors & Independent Researcher




Research

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