Nature or activity in focus? : Qualitative study on physical education teachers views on nature, and how it affects outdoor education

Aim: The study aim is to investigate whether and how teachers´s veiws on nature and teaching outdoors affects teaching in outdoor activities in the subject of sports and health. The study applies the transformative learning theory. The questions in the study is as follows: How do physical education teachers work to create outdoor education where the students have the opportunity to deepen the realationship between human and nature? What influence do the physical education teachers experience and prior knowledge have on the design of outdoor education? What views on the nature are conveyd to the students in outdoor education? Method: This study uses a qualitative method where a semi structured interveiws was applyed with a selection of five teachers working on junior high and high school, the participants had a experience range between 30 + years to 2 years. The collected transcribed raw data was coded and analyzed based on the transformative learning theory and research questions. Results: The result that could be seen in the study based on the research questions was that the participants had a possitive view on nature that the conveyed to the students, but that this view of nature generally did not conveyed to a education where nature where in the forefront. What cleary emerged was that the the teaching was generally based on varius activites and skills that the students should possess and the veiw of the evoriement they live in came secondary. The participants work on giving the students opportunity to reflect and deepen their relationship was something that generally not good at Without activites such as orientation and building windbreaks, that was what the teaching consisted of and the reason to that was largly to due to lack of competence, that they did not find it clear in the curriculum, the students attention and experiences and knowledge they had gained from education they had attended. Conclussion: So the conclusion that can be drawn from this study is that outdoor education is largely based on activities and skills instead of giving students the opportunity to gain an understanding of the evoriment and nature. This is because teachers do not possess the skills and do not see it as their task to give students knowledge about nature and the enviroment they are in during outdoor education.