Mapping “nature schools” - is this concept used outside Denmark?

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With the approval of the education=* key, which seem to open up for more a nuanced tagging of educational facilities, I’ve been looking into possibly mapping a specific type of institution we have in Denmark, called a “naturskole” (literally “nature school”), and I’d be very interested to hear if similar concepts exist in other countries.

A Danish naturskole is an institution dedicated to environmental and nature education for children and young people (generally age 6 to 16). These places provide facilities and support for moving teaching out of the traditional classroom and into natural surroundings.

Visits are usually arranged in advance as part of planned teaching activities. They are generally not open drop-in facilities for the public although some also organise events for other groups than school pupils.

Most are located in forests or other nature areas (often state-owned). As far as I know they usually have staff (biologists and nature guides) who help facilitate teaching, but nature schools are not formal schools themselves, they complement regular education and teachers.

Activities are hands-on and interdisciplinary. Some can also function as bases for field trips or overnight stays (e.g. with lean-tos).

Historically in Denmark, the concept dates back to the early 1970s and has since become a fairly established supplement to regular classroom education. Many are run in cooperation between the Danish Nature Agency and one or more municipalities, although some are also privately operated.

Importantly: A nature school is not the same as a Danish “skovbørnehave” (i.e. “Forest kindergarten”) which I think is more similar to the “forest schools” that apparently also exist in other countries. In Denmark the forest schools/skovbørnehaver are exclusively early childhood institutions where children stay outdoors most or all of the year and often have very minimal indoor facilities that may not even be located in a permanent place. A naturskole, on the other hand, is a shared facility (indoor and outdoor) in a specific place used by different schools and similar groups for shorter teaching stays. Finally, as I understand it, nature schools focus primarily on teaching about nature and the natural sciences, rather than on pupils’ personal development.

All this to say that I’m considering introducing / using the tag education=nature_school

Do you have anything similar to the Danish nature schools in your country? If yes, would a tag like education=nature_school also make sense for those? Or would you consider this too specific to Denmark, or are there better tags to describe those schools in your country?

I’m also open to alternative tagging suggestions if nature_school seems too broad or potentially conflicting with other types of educational facilities I’m not aware of.

I realise that even in Denmark where these naturskoler are relatively common, this would still be a niche tag. That said, I think they differ enough from regular schools (which currently they are often tagged as) that I think it may be worth considering a more specific tagging approach.

Thanks.

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I don’t know how to tag it either, but my hometown in Massachusetts in the U.S. has something which sounds similar, which offers field trips for schools and day camps and that sort of thing, to help children experience nature. It’s not government-run, but is a non-profit organization.

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This recent discussion touches on multiple related facilities, with links to older topics. Though I guess a facility where the main focus is educational activity would work better under education=* despite certain other similarities to a summer camp.

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There are farms that have rooms used for educational visits and explaining how farms work and where did comes from.

There are residential outdoor facilities particularly aimed at the end of primary school to get to know other kids they will join in high school.

I’m aware of a forest school near me that primarily runs in school holidays to help teach outdoor things.

The council has an outdoor activities base that is an office or old small school building which is used for school holiday outdoor activities where the kids go elsewhere to do the activity.

So several similar types of venue.

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My hometown has the Outdoor Learning Center, operated by the local public school district. It’s not open to walk-ins, but it serves scheduled visits for schools in the area, as well as community organizations like the Boy Scouts. Sounds like this is pretty similar to a Danish “nature school”.

I don’t think there’s an established English term for this type of facility. I support education=nature_school - it seems straightforward and self-explanatory.

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The sort of programs you’re describing definitely exist in Canada, but I would be hesitant to tag one as a school unto itself.

For example, this building (added to the map by yours truly a few years ago) at a nearby provincial (government-owned and operated) park hosts school groups. I’ve been inside the building: it’s essentially just one large room with a couple smaller washrooms and a storage closet or two. It gets used by school groups, but also serves as an event space for many other things, for example lectures and even wedding receptions.

Can it be used for education? Yeah, absolutely. Does it get used for education? Yeah, absolutely.

But is it a “school”? An “educational institution”? I don’t think so; not really. Parks staff and volunteers use the space to teach kids about nature (botany, archaeology, etc.), but to me this is really just a “field trip venue”. In exactly the same way a zoo might be a field trip venue where you learn about animals, or a museum might be a field trip venue to learn about history/art/whatever the subject of the museum is.

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“Institution” was probably not the right word to use, and it isn’t used on the wiki page for education either. It simply describes it as a tag “to map educational features.”

But I can see what you mean. In Denmark, as far as I know, there is also some differences in the standard of equipment and facilities at nature schools. Some are relatively basic, i.e. little more than a room on loan as part of another building with basic facilities and various equipment for teaching about nature in the outdoors, whilst others also have permanent staff specifically serving the nature school.

However, I would still argue that this is a specific type of educational feature which has more in common with school lessons than a class trip to a zoo or a museum, which offers one-off lessons or guided tours to kids. But I’m certainly open to suggestions for other terms to use when tagging this sort of feature, or even objections to creating specific tagging for them in the first place.

What has prompted me to look into this in particular is also that, in Denmark, OSM contributors are clearly unsure about the best way to tag these “naturskoler”. Many are, as I mentioned, tagged as a standard school, but some also as a tourist information centre, a museum, a community centre, a recreational area, or simply by adding the name to the building.