ABOUT MOVING AND LEARNING OUTSIDE – MLO

This international action-research project aims at promoting the practice of outdoor education through a play-based and physical activity approach in preschools. Inspired and supported by the kind of pedagogical approach widely spread in Norway, our PROJECT AIMS specifically at:

- Drawing changes on the perceptions of policy makers, teachers, caretakers and parents on the possibilities of the outdoor as a rich and valuable environment for preschool children's learning, development and well-being.
- Improving pedagogical competences of preschool teachers and caretakers working with children in the outdoor environment, adopting physical activity and play based strategies.

These objectives will be achieved through the implementation of different activities within the investigation-action by the universities investigators that will involve children, preschool staff members, parents and municipality staff with the purpose of changing mentalities. In a way, it can be said that the project target group is virtually the whole society.
In terms of project management, this project mixes traditional waterfall and critical path methodologies. The project management work packages are organized in 4 groups that include interdependent and chronologically overlapped tasks that will allow monitoring the progress of project activities.

For project implementation, the activity milestones coincide with Activity Work Packages, detailed into different tasks, actions with a timeline that is somewhat rigid. Each activity is defined from the findings and conclusions reached in the preceding one, nonetheless, they are interdependent when it comes to the delivery of final outputs, because they all contribute to their definition.
The methodological framework constituted by 4 approaches is operationalized across the different stages of the project, in order to address the project’s goal: