Examining the learning benefits of school lessons in green spaces

• Exposure to nature has benefits for cognitive functioning, in particular for attention. • Elementary-school and middle-school students had a school lesson in nature and in the classroom. • Conceptual learning was better from the lesson in the green environment only in elementary-school students’. • Both elementary and middle-school students perceived the green environment as more restorative than the classroom. In areas other than education, research has documented the cognitive benefits of both long-term exposure to nature surrounding homes and schools, and short-term exposure during recess time after depletion of mental resources. In two educational studies we were interested in the impact of exposure to nature during a regular school lesson on complex content, not a green break as in previous research. We compared a lesson taught in a green area outside the school to a similar lesson taught in the indoor classroom environment. Study 1 involved elementary-school students ( N = 91), while Study 2 involved middle-school students ( N = 55). Both studies had a within-participants design and followed the same procedure. The cognitive impact of exposure to nature was measured as conceptual learning from the lesson by a typical multiple-choice school task. We also measured participants’ perception of the quality of the environment in which the lessons took place, while controlling for their current affective state. Results from Study 1 revealed greater conceptual learning in elementary-school children after the lesson in the greenness. They also perceived the natural area as more restorative than the classroom. In contrast, Study 2 showed that middle-school students’ conceptual learning was higher in the classroom than in the green area, although they also perceived the latter as more restorative than the classroom. Our investigation suggests that exposure to nature during a school lesson has potential to generate learning benefits, highlighting the contribution of the physical environment to learning.