Exploring system change: a data-driven look at outdoor early learning in practice

Bringing learning outdoors: rethinking early childhood education

Early learning shapes how children grow, explore and connect with the world. Traditionally, learning happens indoors. But what if the Scottish school system moved it outside, into nature? Nature-based Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) gives toddlers the space to develop critical life skills, build a lasting bond with nature, and thrive as whole individuals. But making the shift isn’t as simple as adding a garden. It touches everything: how teachers work, how spaces are designed, how funding is allocated, and how families engage.

How key factors connect in outdoor ELC

Dr Claudia Zucca, together with a team of researchers specializing in education based at the SPHSU MRC/CSO University of Glasgow, studied the introduction of outdoor ELC, a type of outdoor education, in Scotland. The challenge: how do you introduce change in a complex system such as children’s education and understand its effects? To find out, they worked directly with managers and teachers shaping early learning every day. In a series of workshops, school managers and childcare professionals helped map the key factors influencing outdoor play, ranging from weather and staffing to educator confidence and parent mindsets.

The researchers used Group Model Building and Causal Loop Diagrams to map the system of factors that depict how outdoors learning works and network analysis to make sense of the system. The result: a  diagram showing how 42 different factors interact. And the key points to monitor and work on to leverage change:

Causal Loop Diagram, ©Datory

Small changes, big effects

Out of this network of connections, the team identified six leverage points. These are areas where small, targeted interventions can ripple through the system and make a big difference. For instance: training educators to feel more confident outside or building a culture where outdoor learning is seen as valuable, not risky.
These points offer practical starting places for policymakers, schools, and communities who want to shift towards nature-based ELC, but need to know where to begin.

Benefits of nature-based play. ©Datory

From social science to systems thinking

For Claudia, this project brings together two worlds: social science and data analysis. With a background in computational political science and a passion for network theory, she sees data science as a way to solve wicked, real-world problems.

“These methods give people tools to understand change,” she says. “Not from the top down but grounded in their own experience.”

Research with impact

This is what JADS aims for: data science that matters. By translating professional experience into a structured model, the research offers a practical tool for those working to redesign early learning systems. It’s a step towards better decisions, based on a clearer understanding of how things connect.

Infographic

Discover, and share, this research via the infographic our partner Datory made.