Green Steps ARK (Activate – Restore – Know) is a free, open-source web app that helps schools expand the learning space from the classroom to the outdoors. It combines place-based education, environmental education, and digital tools into an outdoor learning management system.
Place-based education is an educational approach in which the concrete living environment of the students—school buildings, neighborhoods, communities, and bioregions—becomes the central object of learning.
Learning takes place where
The ARK supports place-based education by:
An overview of the method: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/379669944_Scaling_Place-Based_Education_Through_a_Networked_Game
The ARK uses a uniform zone logic for schools and communities, based on permaculture and location-based education.
Zone 0 – Buildings
School buildings, classrooms, gym
→ Preparation, reflection, documentation
Zone 1 – School outdoor area
School garden, schoolyard, direct open spaces
→ Safe entry area, especially for younger students
Zone 2 – School surroundings / neighborhood / district
Parks, street trees, streams, local squares
→ Exploration, mapping, initial responsibility
Zone 3 – Municipality / District / Neighborhood
Public green spaces, natural and cultural monuments
→ Cooperation with municipality, citizen science, excursions
Zone 4 – Ecoregion
Contiguous natural area with the same climatic and ecological conditions
→ e.g., regional river landscapes, forest or agricultural areas
Example: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/398572966_Scaling_bioregional_identities_in_the_5-country_biosphere_park_Mura-Drava-Duna
Zone 5 – Bioregion
Large-scale ecological and cultural unit
→ Identity, biodiversity, long-term understanding of the system
This logic enables age-appropriate, expanding learning from a safe space to the bioregion.
The ARK functions as a digital infrastructure for the open space:
Comparable to a SIS (student information system) – but for outdoors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_information_system
The entry is structured:
The ARK library offers numerous freely accessible, bilingual workshops – some offline, others ARK-supported.
https://ark.greensteps.me/library
https://www.greensteps.me/library/10-bfg-guardian-workshops-online.php
These formats are particularly suitable for a low-threshold project start.
Digital quality assurance through:
ARK reduces organizational hurdles and makes free-space teaching scalable and team-compatible.
In the long term, ARK enables:
Answer:
ARK supports a cooperative learning model that focuses on place-based learning, community welfare, and ecological responsibility. Learning is not understood as an individual test of knowledge, but as a collaborative process in which students, teachers, and local actors work together to understand, care for, and develop their living environment.
Answer:
Cooperative learning in the ARK means that learning processes are:
ARK makes this collaboration visible—not only as participation, but as a qualitative learning and creative achievement.
Answer:
The ARK visualizes learning processes via:
This creates a learning portfolio that shows how and what was learned—not just that something was completed.
Bioregional identity describes how well learners know and feel connected to their local natural and cultural environment.
The ARK makes this development visible by:
The goal is not evaluation, but awareness-raising and a sense of belonging.
Explanatory video: Overview Effect and Bioregions
The following short manual video shows why bio- and eco-regions are necessary as an alternative organizational structure to nation states.
Many education systems face the challenge of promoting belonging and orientation in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms. Traditional curricula often respond to this slowly and abstractly.
The ARK addresses this by using the shared living space as a unifying learning context. Natural and cultural landscapes can be experienced equally by all children, regardless of their origin or first language.
Explanatory video: Bioregions and communities as learning spaces
The following short manual video shows how the ARK structures bioregions and communities as learning spaces.
Place-based learning starts locally, while bioregional education broadens the view systemically.
The ARK connects the two through a clear spatial learning logic: from the specific location to larger ecological contexts.
Students learn:
This creates a bioregional awareness that is not abstract, but experienced.
Technically and in terms of content, this connection is made possible by the ARK integrating scientifically based biogeographical data. Specifically, the ARK incorporates data sets from the NGOs Resolve and One Earth.
Each place of learning and action is thus automatically embedded in a nested spatial structure:
Place of learning → Community → Ecoregion → Bioregion → Biome → Kingdom.
Users thus always act from a specific location within those territories that are scientifically described and documented by biogeography.
This multi-scale perspective is reinforced in the ARK by extensive gamification elements: progress, roles, badges, and narratives make visible how local action is connected to regional and global ecological systems – and motivate users to take responsibility beyond their own location.
Create an account on ARK to experience this perspective for yourself: https://ark.greensteps.me/about/
ARK enables learning about what everyone shares:
This creates a common frame of reference that:
No. The ARK is format-neutral. It supports:
The focus is not on technology, but on the pedagogical structuring of learning in real space.
Children under the age of 13 are not expected to use mobile phones individually.
The ARK:
Digital tools are used for organization and visualization, not for continuous use.
The ARK provides:
This makes place-based learning scalable, traceable, and usable in the long term.
Answer:
Unlike traditional school platforms,
The ARK is not just another tool, but a digital commons to support place-based learning projects.
ARK makes place-based learning and bioregional education systematically scalable, thereby closing a key gap in current education policy.
Impact on education policy in brief:
In short:
The ARK supports education policy in making the transition from a subject-centered, nationally fragmented education system to a location-based, cooperative, and sustainable education infrastructure.
Place-based learning projects always start in a real place: in the school environment, in the community, or in a natural setting.
Green Steps ARK supports learning processes by:
Students explore places, document their observations, and use them to develop learning routes, quests, or stories.
The ARK serves as a tool in the background, not as a curriculum.
Both are possible.
Projects such as “Mura Calling” in Bad Radkersburg show that a school project can become:
A central one.
Place-based learning with the support of the ARK:
In the Mura Calling project, conservation awareness was not created through instruction,
but through relationships, observation, and participation in the floodplain forest and river area.
Learning thus becomes the basis for nature conservation and regional identity.
The ARK can be used regardless of age; the methods are adapted:
The Mura Calling example shows how projects can have an impact across multiple school levels.
Teachers are not technical administrators, but rather:
A short learning location mentor training course (1–3 hours) is sufficient to:
Yes, absolutely.
The ARK is a digital commons, not a fixed program.
Schools, communities, and associations can:
– ARK provides support in the following areas:
Green Steps is the initiator and user, not the owner of the content.
Unlike traditional projects, the following remains:
Students experience:
“Our learning has meaning beyond school.”
This is a core principle of place-based learning.
Because it allows communities to:
Mura Calling is a good example of how school projects:
No.
The smartphone is transformed from a distraction into a learning and documentation tool.
Minimum option (low-threshold introduction)
This option is particularly suitable for:
This workshop has been tried and tested and is already officially offered for secondary level I
(e.g., Bildungschancen Wien).
Lower Secondary
Upper Secondary
Within the framework of the Green Steps format Big Friendly Giants, yes. Here, the focus for upper secondary school is on designing routes/learning paths, and there is a separate 3-hour workshop/training session that:
Alternative place-based learning projects such as Healing Herbs can also be mapped using ARK. ARK is an open, federated, social learning, participation, and qualification system that can be used for all formats of location-based learning.
Yes – and this is a key success factor.
Based on Green Steps’ experience, it makes sense that:
Community Mentor training
This training takes place before the student workshop.
This has proven to be a very high-quality semester project.
Both are possible.
Practical example:
At BORG Bad Radkersburg, geography, computer science, and biology, among other subjects, work together on ARK projects.
Yes—that is a central principle of ARK.
Students create something lasting that has real-world applications.
That is the essence of place-based learning.
ARK school projects combine learning, creativity, and responsibility—with a manageable time commitment and long-term impact.
Yes – ARK can be used very effectively to support place-based learning projects in primary schools, under certain didactic conditions.
ARK can be used regardless of age, but roles, methods, and technical use are adapted to the children’s level of development.
With the support of Green Steps ARK, primary schools can, for example:
The focus is not on technology, but on:
The following applies to elementary school and early secondary school:
👉 The ARK does not replace a didactic setting; it supports teachers in organizing place-based learning in a meaningful way. The ARK brings structure to learning on site—not screens into children’s hands.
Examples of suitable formats:
These projects can be:
Highly recommended:
Afterwards, teachers can:
Particularly suitable for:
Yes – ARK supports place-based learning in elementary school very well, when it is pedagogically framed, age-appropriate and supervised by qualified teachers.
The ARK turns litter collection campaigns into a cooperative RESTORE experience that makes commitment visible, increases motivation, and has a long-term learning effect. Instead of one-off clean-ups, contributions are documented, visualized, and linked over time—regardless of whether they are Plastic Pirates, Earth Day campaigns, or school waste collection projects.
Explanatory video: Waste collection & gamification in the ARK
The following short manual video shows in a practical way how waste collection campaigns can be structured and made visible in a playful way with the help of the ARK. [Watch explanatory video – Waste collection & gamification in the ARK]
The format shown in the video is based on:
The ARK serves as a digital infrastructure, not as an end in itself.
With the support of Green Steps ARK, litter picking becomes a cooperative RESTORE practice in which commitment remains visible and has an impact beyond individual actions.
Zone 1 refers to the immediate learning space around the school building, especially the school garden.
Place-based learning uses this specific location as a starting point for learning through action, observation, and taking responsibility. Knowledge is not conveyed in an abstract way, but arises from a direct relationship with the soil, plants, seasons, and shared practice.
Groovy Garden and Healing Herbs are two tried-and-tested Green Steps formats that were used to develop and test the functionalities of Green Steps ARK in the school garden.
Both formats
Groovy Garden
Healing Herbs
Zone 1 allows for regular, low-threshold use without excursions or complex logistics.
Both formats show that even small areas are sufficient to:
The school garden thus transforms from an “outdoor space” into an integral learning environment.
The ARK makes the projects visible and connectable:
The following key factors can be derived from the experience reports:
Common challenges include:
However, experience reports show that
These hurdles can be overcome if projects start small, are communicated transparently, and are structurally supported by the ARK.
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