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A headteacher was asked to say why practical science, including the use of the outdoors–apparently under threat from health and safety concerns and science experiment videos–was so important to pupils. How would you have responded? It might, or might not, come as a surprise to you that the headteacher with 30 years’ experience was in certain respects unable to answer the question. She gave a fluent response that pointed to her conviction that ‘pupils learn more’because it is ‘hands-on’,‘experiential’and ‘enjoyable and engaging’. But none of these go very deeply into how it makes a difference. Actually, such an explanation appears hard to provide; just how does ‘the outside’and ‘experience’make learning different? To begin to respond to the challenge of making sense of the relationship between place and learning–the central purpose of this chapter–let us return to the headteacher’s comments above and …