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You don’t need to be a scientist to know the power of nature on our mind, body, and soul. Anyone who has hiked through a forest, crossed a desert, swam in a river or ocean, or climbed a mountain has felt a wave of calmness and emerged refreshed and reinvigorated. It’s in nature’s “inexhaustible vigour, vast and Titanic features” that Henry David Thoreau says we can “witness our own limits transgressed.” And it’s in nature’s “infinite affection and infiniter care” that Emily Dickinson writes we have “the gentlest mother” to “the feeblest or the waywardest” amongst us.
Experiences in the wilderness can do even more for young learners. Researchers have found that nature-based learning can boost student interest and engagement, foster positive social interactions and cognitive functioning, promote work-related skills like problem‐solving, increase creativity, enhance STEM capacity, to name just five. The list of benefits is wide-ranging – increasingly showing educators the vital importance of expanding the classroom to green surroundings.
The following schools in Asia have long known this, letting their students explore everything from tall mountains to the depths of the oceans. At the core of it all is a well-thought-out plan to give young people what they need to prepare for the future: friendship, community, a sense of purpose, and an opportunity to leave their comfort zones.
For its centenary, Tanglin Trust School in Singapore is launching a five-week Highlands Programme that fuses academic learning with outdoor education, adventure activities, and sustainability initiatives at its new campus in Gippsland, Australia. Source: Tanglin Trust School
Tanglin Trust School
Tanglin Trust School in Singapore is marking its centenary with a series of exciting events that celebrate all aspects of its holistic education — music, culture, sport, and academics. Among these, the launch of the Highlands Programme for Year 9 students stands out as a significant milestone.
This five-week experiential learning programme is inspired by a boarding school established by Tanglin’s founder in the 1930s in Cameron Highlands, Malaysia, designed to provide students with a fresh outdoor learning environment. While rooted in Tanglin’s history, the Highlands Programme has been established to meet the needs of contemporary education.
Year 9 (ages 13 to 14) represents a key transition point as students move from Middle School into Upper Senior School — a pivotal stage in their personal and academic development. Based at Tanglin’s new 15-acre campus in Gippsland, Australia, the five-week residential programme blends academic learning with outdoor education, adventure activities, and sustainability initiatives. Through immersive, hands-on experiences, students will develop essential life skills such as resilience, teamwork, problem-solving, and independence.
At the heart of the programme are the three Cs — Curiosity, Confidence, and Community. The value of curiosity comes through learning moments in the great outdoors, helping bring subjects to life — geography lessons unfold in the bush, and history is explored through local landscapes — which, in turn, engages and motivates students more. Confidence is built through outdoor challenges and tramping expeditions that push students beyond their comfort zones, while the sense of community is strengthened through shared responsibilities, teamwork, and contributing to the daily running of the Tanglin Gippsland campus.
In an age where the role of technology in education is constantly debated — whether in the rise of AI or increasing social media restrictions in schools — the Highlands Programme offers a refreshing low-tech, experiential alternative. With a philosophy of using technology only for essential educational and communication purposes, it encourages students to read and write more, embrace the natural world, and develop independence.
The Highlands Programme aims to be a transformative experience for students. It takes education beyond the classroom and screen, equipping students with the skills and mindset to thrive in a rapidly changing world. “For those new to this experience, simply attempting the programme in the Australian bush is a significant achievement,” says Mark Cutchie, Head of Campus. “For others, it’s an opportunity to push their physical and mental limits. These challenges help students develop resilience, grit, perseverance, and expand their understanding of what they are capable of.”
Marlborough College Malaysia integrates the natural world into its curriculum. Source: Marlborough College Malaysia
Marlborough College Malaysia
At Marlborough College Malaysia (MCM), students literally grow, harvest, and feed. It’s all part of the upkeep of their Barton Farm, for which pupils are just as responsible for. Under the guidance of Farmer Paul, all pupils give up some of their time and serve the community.
Throughout the week, Senior School and Upper Prep School pupils have activity sessions set here whilst prep boarders regularly visit on weekends to tend their vegetable patches. Senior boarders ensure that the chickens are released from the coop in the morning, fed and then secured in the coop in the evening. Even Pre-School and Nursery pupils get to take part – they take walks around the farm, sample produce and listen to stories in the shade of the atap.
Getting students to care for animals and plants is part of MCM’s brand of British education tailored to stimulate, challenge, and support students in discovering and developing their talents in various areas.
Set on a safe and spacious 90-acre estate, MCM is guided by principles of compassion, companionship, and conversation. Here, students join the faculty in pursuing questions, not simply answers; in discovering ideas, not merely facts; and in appreciating the journey, not solely the destination.
Beyond the farm, MCM takes pupils into the great outdoors via a structured trips programme. Available to pupils in Reception (age 4/5) through to the Upper Sixth (Year 13), these trips have brought students to treks and expeditions, including as part of the Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award. To attain the Bronze Award, pupils spend six months developing skills, serving and getting physically ready to complete an adventurous journey.
Branksome Hall Asia is among the top international schools in the world. Source: Branksome Hall Asia/Facebook
Branksome Hall Asia
Established in 2012, South Korea’s Branksome Hall Asia is the sister school to Branksome Hall, the 114-year-old independent girls’ school in Toronto, Canada. Similar to Branksome Hall Canada, this international school in Asia aims to nurture and develop students to be globally-minded learners and leaders.
Branksome Hall Asia is the only international school on Jeju Island offering all three of the International Baccalaureate programmes. As a student here, your child will reap the well-known benefits of the IB programme, i.e. lifelong skills and attributes such as critical thinking, international mindedness, creativity, agency, and resilience.
As graduates, they often rank among the best in the world and can be found in the world’s top universities, the likes of Johns Hopkins University, King’s College London, National University of Singapore, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, University of Toronto, and Trinity College Dublin.
They have skillfully navigated their programmes and studies not by poring over books in libraries alone. Being based on the island of Jeju, South Korea, educators here make the most of the natural beauty and culture of a UNESCO World Heritage Site to enhance the learning and well-being of students.
Here, students get to go tangerine picking, hike Mount Halla, camp on campus grounds, and experience a “Week Without Walls” on the island’s beaches and forests. Meanwhile, Grade 9 students, on their exchange trip to their sister school in Toronto, kayaked at Algonquin Park and visited Niagara Falls, where they took a 38-meter elevator down to go behind the falls.
*Some of the institutions featured in this article are commercial partners of Study International
