ABSTRACT
Outdoor education (OE) is widely promoted as key part/aspect/element of physical education (PE) across the world. However, in developed countries, OE is often implemented in closed, man-made and aseptic environments, where practices take place in artificialised and highly polluting infrastructures such as ski- or golf-fields. These latter practices layout a strong contradiction between the promotion of outdoor education and sustainability; on the one hand, trying to encourage physical activity in the outdoors for health benefits, and on the other, inevitably disrupting or even destroying the health of the environment. Therefore, to take up the challenge of educating youth to a sustainable way of life, we propose an OE capable of promoting simultaneously five threshold concepts: (1) safety education, (2) competence development (social and motor), (3) health promotion, (4) cultural transmission and (5) sustainable development literacy. We will exemplify these proposals using the Friluftsliv, a Norwegian approach to OE.
