Outdoor school: There is a place for every child in nature

The great outdoors accommodates all personality types from loud to quiet, says a Cork early years educator 

When Gillian Powell says we can all remember something we did as children in nature with our families, I’m immediately transported to a summer Sunday afternoon, wading in a shallow river with my mother. I was just 10 but the memory is vivid.

Lecturing in early education at Dundalk IT and Cork College of Commerce and an early years educator for 32 years, Powell cites research from US and Norwegian studies to explain why such a long-ago memory remains so clear.