Determination of design criteria for outdoor learning approach in preschool education institution gardens

In recent years, especially with the effect of the pandemic, the importance of children spending time in the open air and education in the open air has increased, and the need to include outdoor spaces outside the school building in the education process has come to the fore. The early childhood period is a process that should be arranged in a way that supports the comprehensive development of the child, and one of the most important factors affecting this process is school gardens, which is one of the outdoor learning environments. In this thesis, it has tried to find an answer to the question of how out-of-school learning environments should be organized. In this direction, reviewed the literature and the resources collected within the scope of pre-school education institutions were analyzed and synthesized. A table of design criteria has been created for pre-school education institutions. In the next stage, the preschool garden in Istanbul, which applies international models to develop nature and environmental awareness in children, was observed and evaluated according to the design criteria table Based on the data obtained from the evaluations, firstly specific suggestions were made for this school, and then general suggestions were made for the gardens of the pre-school education institutions.