The contribution focuses on outdoor education in secondary schools (schoolyears 7 to 9; students aged 12 to 15). It is based on the situation in Switzerland but combines the findings from Switzerland with findings from other European countries and the USA by using interview and observation data.

Current societal challenges call for social and interpersonal skills and interaction with the real world. Therefore, outdoor lessons can be beneficial: Outdoor lessons can be conducive to this because they promote (not exclusively – the benefits attributed to regular outdoor learning are numerous –, but also) interdisciplinary skills and enable real-life experiences (e.g. Becker et al., 2017; Kuo et al., 2022; Mygind & Bølling, 2022). Moreover, outdoor education is an approach to foster education for sustainable development (ESD) in everyday school life (Boileau et al., 2021; Glettler, 2022; Kuo et al., 2022; von Au & Jucker, 2022). ESD can be found in curricula such as the one in German-speaking Switzerland, where outdoor learning is practiced at several but not in all schools (Müller-Kuhn & Häbig, 2022). Schools that have not previously taught outdoors promote outdoor learning in part through extensive school improvement processes (Müller-Kuhn & Zala-Mezö, 2025).

In pioneering outdoor learning countries such as Denmark (Barfod et al., 2021), but also in Switzerland (Kühnis et al., 2024), the ideal of regular, curriculum-related outdoor learning exists. National and international research shows that outdoor learning decreases with increasing school level (Bentsen et al., 2010; Müller-Kuhn & Häbig, 2022). This means that younger children learn outside more often than older students. While the school structures in kindergarten and elementary school are similar, this changes in secondary school in Switzerland: a key difference is that in secondary schools, several subject teachers are involved in teaching a class, while children in kindergarten and primary school are taught by mainly one teacher.

This leads to the thesis that both the introduction and implementation of outdoor learning in secondary school differs from outdoor learning in kindergarten and elementary school. The planned presentation will therefore address the specifics of outdoor learning in secondary school from a school improvement perspective (Zala-Mezö et al., 2018). Grade-specific challenges are described and solutions for dealing with them are discussed. The questions underlying the planned presentation are the following:

1)    What are the conditions that frame outdoor learning in secondary schools?

1. To what extent do these differ from the conditions in kindergarten and elementary school?
2. How – beneficial, challenging, hindering – do which conditions affect outdoor learning in secondary school?
3. What does this mean for the introduction of outdoor learning in secondary school?

2)    How is outdoor learning practiced in secondary schools?

1. What does outdoor learning look like?
2. How is outdoor learning connected to the curriculum?
3. How are learning concepts of the teachers connected to outdoor learning in their argumentation?

The planned presentation is based on interview (Helfferich, 2011) and observation data (Reh, 2012; Scholz, 2012), which will be collected between January and June 2025, and analyzed using a qualitative, structuring content analysis (Kuckartz, 2014): Interviews will be conducted with school administrators and teachers. Observation data will be collected during participant observations in secondary school classes during outdoor learning. The data is collected in Switzerland as well as in other European countries and the USA in order to allow for contrasting and broadening perspectives.

The results show the implementation of outdoor learning in the secondary schools considered. This can offer guidance for future school improvement processes to promote outdoor learning in secondary schools. The international perspective enables a broader view and contrasts the situation in Switzerland with the outdoor education situation in other European countries and in the USA. Initial results show that the framework conditions at secondary level are different from those at kindergarten and primary level and that these present specific challenges for the implementation of outdoor education. With the appropriate support from the school management and possible further development of school practice, outdoor learning can also be feasible under these conditions. At the structural level, a start for a curriculum-based implementation of regular outdoor education could be a timetable in which the students have several consecutive lessons with the same teacher. In terms of content and didactics, further training and coaching for teachers is necessary so that they feel more confident with outdoor teaching in line with the curriculum. The teachers' and students' understanding of teaching and learning can also be discussed in this context: Experience from primary school shows that teachers who are inexperienced in outdoor learning teach very similarly outdoors as they do in the classroom (students sit, solve tasks, write, etc.). A rethink seems to be necessary so that learning can take place outside in a coherent way – coherent in terms of the environment and the conditions there, but also in terms of the curriculum. At an overarching level, the results provide information on how secondary schools can be prepared for the increasing demand for ESD and thus also outdoor education and can implement it in a meaningful and practicable way. In addition, the study shows approaches on how ESD can be integrated into teaching.

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