Grant Billcliff (35) has spent the past six months researching outdoor education in Otago schools, and found pupils learned to work together and care for themselves better as a result of participating in outdoor activities.
Mr Billcliff, now a physical education teacher at Nelson College, said he was able to take paid leave for the past year to do the research, after winning the 2010 Royal Society of New Zealand Sciences, Mathematics and Technology Teacher Fellowship.
"The research looks at outdoor education and its role in developing key competencies in students.
"It was about proving and reinforcing what outdoor educators have known for years."
Mr Billcliff said there were many arguments in New Zealand schools about the cost and risk involved with outdoor education, particularly in the wake of the deaths at the Outdoor Pursuits Centre at Tongariro, and some schools believed senior pupils should spend more time studying rather than "having fun".
However, his research calls for a continuation and increase in outdoor activities because they build important skills not easily taught in classrooms.
"It gives them the ability to be organised, relate to others, solve problems, persevere, and it also teaches them that there are consequences to their actions.
"These are all important life skills."
The research was recently presented to the Royal Society of New Zealand in Wellington, and Mr Billcliff hopes it will now be published in a variety of outdoor journals and education publications.
