Enabling Environments: Arctic temperatures

Arctic Outdoor Preschool reveals the experiences of children, teachers and parents at the Tusseladden Outdoor Kindergarten in Tromso, Norway. From their base at a teepee on the banks of a city-centre fjord, we see four- and five-year-olds digging up potatoes, preparing their own meals, lighting fires to cook them and using real hammers, saws and knives to build wooden boats.

The climax of the film is the children embarking on a 6km hike as part of an outdoor challenge designed for adults. All this in a place so far north that the sun is nowhere to be seen for two months in winter.

Litmus Films originally made the film for Japanese television in 2008, and the English version of the 22-minute documentary has since attracted an ever-wider audience. It has:

• been licensed by university teacher-training programmes, including the Open University's E210 Extending Professional Practice in the Early Years course
• won Best Youth Programme at the 2009 Northern Character Film Festival
• had more than 100,000 YouTube hits with its previous distributor and
• been used by early years teachers around the world, including in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany and the UK.

Its director, Robert Stern, says, 'To our surprise and delight, the English-language version has not only become a viral hit but also required viewing in the early years teacher-training world. It has turned out to strike a deep chord with anyone passionate about outdoor education and concerned about the impact of the risk-averse, "cotton wool" culture on our children.'

Arctic Outdoor Preschool (DVD, £15) also forms part of Learning for Real (DVD, £30), a compilation of three short documentaries on the benefits of giving children responsibility. The other two films are Sir's Happy Little Greenhouse World, about how a teacher turned a rural school into a world centre for orchid conservation, and The Budapest Children's Railway, showing how educational excellence helped a communist relic survive Hungary's transition to capitalism.

To view extracts, buy the films or enquire about screenings, visit: www.litmusfilms.com.