A main element of environmental education is natural experience. It serves as an instrument for developing positive emotional relations to the nature and for contributing to an environmentally responsible behavior (Duerden/Witt 2010). A constitutive element of learning environments in schools is their focus on cognitive learning approaches, which neglect emotional learning processes. But the latter seems to be particularly important for effective environmental education (Ernst/Theime 2011, Eilam/Trop 2011). Bögeholz (1999, 2001, 2006) pointed out the significant impact of exploring, esthetical, and ecological approaches of experiencing nature on children’s intentions for environmentally responsible behavior. In this study Bögeholz (1999) identified four types of natural experience: the social type, the ecological-exploring type, the instrumental-exploring type, and the esthetical type. The ecological-exploring type was found to be most relevant for environmental behavior. Furthermore, the results showed age-related changes in the incidence of the four types.
One of the main findings from research on school environmental education is that the latter seems to affect environmental knowledge and attitudes of learners positively, but that this knowledge does not become relevant to behavior (Seybold/Rieß 2006) especially for learners in urban settings (Gebauer 1994). One of the reasons may be a misfit between the characteristics of learning offers in schools and pupils’ needs (Heinrich 2005). Referring to the developmental stage-environment fit approach (Eccles/Midgley 1989) as well as to the concept of adaptive teaching (Helmke 2009) it can be argued that the lack of adapting instructional arrangements to pupils’ needs, e.g. emotional learning preferences, by varying teaching styles, offering different materials and learning settings, could be accountable for these missing effects on environmental behavior. In school context the stage-environment fit model assumes that different age groups need different types of learning environments in order to meet developmental needs and to foster developmental growth (Mogensen/Mayer 2005). Especially in secondary schools the learning settings are often inappropriate to certain stages of development (Eccles et al. 1993).
As we know so far no empirical studies exist which prove the stage-environment fit rsp. the adaptivity of instructional settings to learners’ needs in the field of environmental education. Based on Bögeholz’ five approaches of experiencing nature (esthetical, exploring, instrumental, ecological, social) our study investigates the following research questions:
1.    Can the four types of natural experience Bögeholz identified in children engaged in environmental protection groups be replicated in a non-selective sample? Are there age-related changes in the incidence of the four types?
2.    Is the preparation and planning of lessons referring to environmental education affected by considerations about different emotional learning approaches?
3.    To which extent are the instructional settings found appropriate to learners’ identified types of natural experience?

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