Open Air School: Effectiveness of an intervention program involving nature to mitigate the impacts of school disruptions linked to Covid-19 on the mental health and healthy lifestyle habits of children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

How can we reduce the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of disadvantaged children, who have been hardest hit? We offer Open Air School, an outdoor education intervention involving contact with nature. There is currently a craze for outdoor education in schools, particularly since the pandemic. Could such practices have salutogenic effects? Experimental studies carried out around the world show that contact with nature (urban park or forest) improves mental health. Preliminary results seem to indicate that this is also the case for children who are in contact with nature during outdoor learning situations. However, no experimental studies have tested the effectiveness of outdoor education as a strategy for improving children's mental health. We will conduct a cluster randomized controlled trial to test the effectiveness of the Open School program. This is a nature-based mental health promotion intervention implemented by teachers. The intervention will last 15 weeks, two hours per week. We will recruit 80 schools with 5th year primary classes from disadvantaged neighborhoods, among schools which are already participating in a larger study carried out by the Observatory for Children's Education and Health (OPES). The intervention will include mental health promotion activities in nature (e.g. cooperation, compassion/empathy, mindfulness) and educational activities. We will evaluate the impact of the intervention on children's health. The results could help decision-makers implement an outdoor education program promoting mental health, based on empirical evidence, and having a high potential for deployment at the population level, at low cost.