Exploring the outdoors together: Assessing family learning in environmental education

•Families at a nature center enjoyed, but struggled to use, field guides and tools.•Families learned using the process: observe an object, describe it, and name it.•A non-expected learning process of tool use first and discovery second emerged.•Researchers posit that localized resources support families’ observations on trails.

This research examined families’ interactions with the outdoors and exploration tools, such as field guides, at a nature center. In Phase 1 of the research, 28 families attending nature walk programs completed a survey on exploration tools and were ethnographically shadowed as they interacted on one trail. In Phase 2, an in-depth video-based analysis of learning processes was applied to 16 families’ (54 people) recorded conversations from the nature walks. A conceptual framework based on informal learning and sociocultural theory situates the study. Findings show that families wanted scientific tools to support observations, yet struggled with field guides to identify species. Implications for supporting family learning processes include the need for localized educational guides and the advantages of video-based methodologies.