PLAY OUTSIDE

The project aimed to reduce screen addiction among students by fostering real-life connections, enhancing their communication, and strengthening their bond with nature. Key objectives included pro...

The project aimed to reduce screen addiction among students by fostering real-life connections, enhancing their communication, and strengthening their bond with nature. Key objectives included promoting outdoor play, encouraging real-world interactions, and reinforcing the well-being benefits of nature-based activities. Specific objectives of the project were to: • Inspiring curiosity and creativity through outdoor exploration and play. • Promoting hands-on, experiential learning in nature-related subjects. • Encouraging genuine, face-to-face interactions. • Reducing screen time through engaging outdoor activities. • Cultivating environmental awareness and sustainability. • Supporting international collaboration and cultural exchange via Erasmus+. • Enhancing intercultural understanding, tolerance, and respect. Aligned with the Development of Key Competences framework, the project sought to enrich children's real-life skills and increase physical activity. Beyond benefiting students, it fostered collaboration among teachers across Europe, encouraging the exchange of best practices. By integrating nature-based, cross-curricular strategies, we aimed to enhance learning while deepening children’s appreciation for the natural world.

We’ve conducted five Learning, Teaching, and Training Activities (LTTAs), including two virtual and three transnational exchanges. These activities focused on implementing nature-based, cross-curricular activities covering topics: Climate changes and weather, The Journey of Plants, Naming the Leaves, Creating Toys in the Forest, creating musical instruments from natural materials. Additionally, we exchanged and implemented traditional outdoor games along with various nature-based activities, which were shared among our project partners to promote active learning through play. A significant focus of our project was also the prevention of screen addiction and the promotion of real-life communication among children. By engaging them in outdoor activities, we motivated them to spend more time in nature, explore their surroundings, and develop social skills through play and teamwork. The emphasis on experiential learning contributed to reducing screen time and improving their overall well-being. To ensure project visibility we’ve created eTwinning project page. Each partner locally conducted and implemented project by variety of project activities, events, team meetings, promoted project and contributed to realization of the project.

Our project actively addressed screen addiction prevention by encouraging children to explore alternative, engaging ways of play through outdoor activities. By fostering direct interactions with nature, teamwork, and hands-on learning, we helped reduce screen time and improve overall well-being. With the goal of enhancing the role of nature and environmental education in school curricula through experiential learning, our project activities empowered children to: • Make environmentally friendly choices. • Develop lifelong respect for nature. • Strengthen their understanding of sustainability. To document and share our work, we created several brochures: • Play Outside – Overview of all project activities. • Games We Play – Traditional outdoor games. • Climate Change – Things We (Can) Do – Practical sustainability steps. • The Journey of Plants – Exploring plant life cycles. • Naming the Leaves – Learning biodiversity. • Toys in the Forest – Creative play with natural materials. • Musical Instruments from Nature – Crafting sounds from nature. Through these tangible outputs, our project has created lasting educational resources available on our eTwinning project page that can be used beyond the project's duration-long-term impact.