Nature based learning for children takes lessons outside, into school gardens and the open spaces close to home. Time outdoors helps children grow stronger and calmer, and the habits they form there often follow them into adulthood. As screens fill more of each day, that time outside is getting harder for many children in India to find.

By Smile Editorial Team
published on October 20, 2026

Nature-Based Learning: How Outdoor Activities Can Support Children’s Development

Summary

Habits formed outdoors in childhood often last into adult life. Children under five in India, though, now spend about 2.2 hours a day on screens, roughly twice the recommended limit.
Time outside builds strength and protects young eyes, and India’s eye specialists now advise about 2 hours outdoors a day to help prevent short-sightedness.
Nature based learning helps children grow in confidence and get along with others, and a review of 147 studies found their school results held up at least as well as in the classroom.
India’s curriculum framework backs daily outdoor play for young children. Simple steps such as early-morning sessions or a few pots of soil can work around heat and a lack of space.
In 2024, Smile Foundation’s environmental education reached over 75,000 children in more than 500 schools, with student eco-clubs caring for the saplings they planted.

Why Children Need More Time Outdoors

What we do often as children tends to stay with us. A child who walks to the park every evening or looks after a few plants is building a habit as well as a skill, one that settles into something close to muscle memory. Years later, many of us find our way back to those same habits. Adult life asks for a great deal of discipline, and much of it is first learned in small daily routines like these, kept up because a child enjoyed them.

Childhood, though, has slowly moved indoors. In the UK, children now spend about 4 hours a week outside, roughly half the time their parents did. In India, children under five spend about 2.2 hours a day on screens, around twice the recommended limit.

Short-sightedness is rising among Indian schoolchildren, and urban studies now put it at nearly 14%. In May 2026, the All India Ophthalmological Society advised about 2 hours outdoors every day to help protect children’s eyes. In a trial in Guangzhou, China, adding one 40-minute outdoor session to the school day cut new cases by nearly a quarter over 3 years.

The WHO advises at least 3 hours of activity a day for children aged one to four, and an hour of brisk activity for older children. Playing outside makes that easier, and in one study, children who spent 2 hours a day outdoors got 27% more vigorous activity than those who did not.

What Nature Based Learning for Children Looks Like

Nature based learning for children can begin with whatever is close at hand. A neem tree in the school courtyard will do, or a muddy patch after the first monsoon rain. At Santiniketan, Rabindranath Tagore held classes under the trees more than a century ago, believing children learn best in touch with the natural world.

Lessons grow out of what children notice around them, as in these simple activities:

Counting seeds or pebbles for early maths
Tracking a plant from seed to flower in a school garden
Measuring rainfall in a jar through the monsoon
Listening for birdsong and learning to tell one call from another
Making art and stories from fallen leaves and twigs
Watching insects with a magnifying glass and asking where they live

Forest kindergartens began in Denmark in the early 1950s, when a mother started taking her own and her neighbours’ children into the woods each day. Germany had more than 1,500 of them by 2017. For most Indian schools, a small garden or a regular lesson outdoors does the same job.

At Different Ages

What children need outdoors changes as they grow:

Under three: Most learning happens through the senses, so touching leaves and splashing in water teach them a great deal
Three to eight: Free play and gardening, along with collecting things to count and sort, build early maths and language skills
Eight to twelve: Small projects, such as a bird diary or a map of the trees around school, get children asking why things happen
Teenagers: Treks and conservation projects build independence and give them a real say in caring for a place

How Outdoor Activities Support Children’s Development

Stronger Bodies

Balancing on a log or running over uneven ground builds strength and coordination. Children who grow their own vegetables tend to eat more of them. Time in the sun also helps the body make vitamin D, which nearly one in five Indian children aged 5 to 9 are short of.

Sharper Attention and Learning

Children at greener schools in Barcelona made bigger gains in memory and attention over a year, and a short walk in a park has helped children with ADHD focus better. A 2022 review of 147 studies found outdoor learning at least as good for school results as classroom teaching, though most of this research comes from outside India.

Emotional and Social Growth

Time in nature helps children settle their feelings and recover from stress, and the same review found its clearest benefits in their confidence. Climbing a tree or crossing a shallow stream teaches a child to judge danger, with an adult close enough to help. Outdoors, children also invent their own games and agree on the rules together. In one study, swapping part of an asphalt playground for grass and plants made children gentler with each other.

Nature Learning in Indian Schools

India’s policies already make room for learning outdoors. The National Curriculum Framework says children aged 3 to 8 need adequate time for outdoor and free play each day, and Environmental Studies (EVS) has been compulsory since a 2003 Supreme Court order.

In many classrooms, though, EVS stays inside the textbook and is sometimes treated as a free period. Nature based learning for children can fit into the existing timetable with very little change. Nature Classrooms, which works with schools in several states, suggests beginning with whatever grows or crawls around the school. A lesson on human senses, for instance, can compare them with the senses of an ant or a bat.

Teachers need support too, as many have had only a few hours of EVS training. In a two-year Dutch study of 75 primary teachers, low confidence outdoors was the biggest hurdle, and their advice to others was to start without waiting for perfect conditions. Outside, a teacher does best by asking questions, such as why the ants are busy today, and letting children find the answers. A nature journal of drawings and notes shows what each child has understood.

Getting Children Outdoors in India

Challenges and Ways Around Them

In cities, open ground is shrinking, and research by Nature Classrooms with Azim Premji University found that many urban children saw no nature around them at all. For these children, nature learning begins with noticing the life on their own street. Village children often grow up near fields and rivers, and what they already know about crops and seasons can easily become part of class.

A few practical hurdles come up often:

Heat: Head out in the early morning or late afternoon, when the sun is gentler
Air pollution: Check the air quality first, and on bad days stay in a courtyard or near a window with plants
Lack of space: About 83% of Indian schools have a playground but only 40% have a kitchen garden, so a strip of soil or a row of old buckets can become one
Safety worries: Agree on safe areas with children and talk through dangers such as roads and open drains
Exam pressure: A maths or science period can move outside and still cover the syllabus

Simple Ways to Begin

Getting started takes very little:

Walk together every day, and let the child set the pace
Keep a few pots on a balcony or windowsill for children to water and watch
Move one lesson a week outdoors, even if only to the courtyard
Dress children for the weather, so rain and mud are no reason to stay in
Leave screens behind during outdoor time

Girls are often steered towards quieter play, though they gain just as much from climbing and exploring, and children with disabilities may need paths and activities adapted for them.

Keeping Children Safe Outdoors

Give children a hat and water on hot days
Stay close whenever children are near water, however shallow
Check long grass for insects and snakes before children sit or dig
Teach children not to taste berries or leaves unless an adult says they are safe
Wash hands after playing in soil and before eating

How Smile Foundation Brings Children Closer to Nature

Empowering Students as Green Ambassadors: Nature based learning

Children who grow up exploring nature tend to care about it as adults, yet many Indian children see nature as something far away. In one study, some mistook Indian hornbills for South American toucans. Smile Foundation starts by helping children notice the life around them.

In 2024, Mission Education reached 1.2 lakh children across 25 states. Its students track their families’ water use and explore the plants and birds near home. That year, Smile Foundation’s environmental education also reached over 75,000 children in more than 500 schools, where student eco-clubs now care for the saplings they planted. Earlier this year, students from Mumbai visited the Bombay Natural History Society to learn about wildlife up close.

Nature based learning for children sits naturally alongside the effort to keep them in school and curious about the world. Mission Education welcomes donations and volunteers from anyone who would like more children to learn with the sky above them.

FAQs: Nature based learning

What is nature based learning for children?

Nature based learning is what happens outdoors, or that uses nature as the starting point for lessons. Children explore and play in natural spaces, with an adult guiding them.

How much time should children spend outdoors?

Indian eye specialists recommend about two hours outdoors every day to help prevent short-sightedness. The WHO advises at least three hours of activity a day for children aged one to four, and an hour of brisk activity for older children.

Does outdoor learning affect school results?

It tends to help. A review of 147 studies found that children learning in nature did at least as well in school as those taught indoors, and grew more in confidence and social skills.

Is outdoor play safe?

With an adult nearby, yes. Small, manageable risks such as climbing or balancing help children learn to judge danger for themselves.

Do children need special equipment?

No. A magnifying glass or a notebook can help, but sticks, stones, leaves and water are enough for most activities.

Can outdoor learning continue during the monsoon?

Yes, with care. Light rain brings out frogs and earthworms for children to watch, but keep everyone indoors during thunderstorms and away from flooded drains and fast-flowing water.

Nature-Based Learning: How Outdoor Activities Can Support Children’s Development

Summary

Why Children Need More Time Outdoors