A newly published editors' volume brings together interdisciplinary or trans-disciplinary approaches to understand the relationship between physical activity in nature and health and well-being - a topic that is currently gaining importance. Our colleague Dr. Christoph Mall contributed a chapter entitled "Students’ Appropriation of Space in Education Outside the Classroom. Some Aspects on Physical Activity and Health from a Pilot Study with 5th-Graders in Germany" to this publication in collaboration with esteemed colleagues Dr. von Au and Prof. Dettweiler.
In this chapter, the authors discuss and explore pupils’ appropriation of space in educational settings that take place outside the classroom and offer some empirical insights from a case study in a German school. Accordingly, Education Outside the Classroom could serve as a school form that facilitates and fosters the pupils’ space appropriation resulting an in increased use of physical freedom that comes with open learning spaces. This in turn seems so lead to an increased interaction of pupils that rarely meet in closed classroom situations and the satisfaction of their need of movement during complicated understanding processes.
Mall, C., von Au, J. & Dettweiler, U. (2021). Students' Appropriation of Space in Education Outside the Classroom. Some Aspects on Physical Activity and Health from a Pilot Study with 5th-Graders in Germany. In E. Brymer, M. Rogerson & J. Barton (Ed.), Nature and Health. Physical Activity in Nature. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003154419.