Consideration of risk and liability in outdoor educative practice has normally been limited to the narrow risks, usually to physical health, of incidents that can cause a particular injury. In this view of risk management, the more readily controlled the circumstance, the less likelihood of risk and consequent liability. Thus, to reduce risk, learning in the natural world is often avoided because it occurs in far more complex and less controllable contexts than human-created ones. However, wider and more grave risks to physical, emotional and mental health that may accrue through a life that is lived in separation from the natural world are not often considered or evaluated. In part, this may be because these kinds of risks are less immediately evident, and liability for negative outcomes may be more difficult to measure. Thus, there is less incentive to consider them. However, delayed outcomes are still outcomes. To consider easily discerned narrow risk alone, while ignoring more complex and longer-term wide risk, is no excuse for avoiding the ethical responsibility that public education carries to provide both the safest and most fecund context for learning. This paper introduces the concept of wide risk as a counterpoint to the narrow risk calculations now performed, and argues that in incorporating an understanding of wide risk in educative practice, at least two results are likely. The first is that learning outdoors will frequently be discovered to be a less risky alternative, if a broad range of outcomes over time are considered. The second is that the value of embracing risk in all aspects of learning ought to become a part of the learning process, and part of what is taught in public schools.

在户外教育实践中，对风险和责任的考虑通常仅限于可能导致特定伤害的事件的窄风险，通常是身体健康。从风险管理的角度来看，对环境的控制越容易，风险和随之而来的责任的可能性就越小。因此，为了降低风险，通常避免在自然界学习，因为它发生在比人类创造的环境复杂得多且可控制性较低的环境中。但是，人们通常不考虑或评估在与自然世界分离生活中可能对身体，情感和心理健康造成的更大，更严重的风险。在某种程度上，这可能是因为这类风险不太明显，并且负面结果的责任可能更难以衡量。因此，没有更多的动力去考虑它们。但是，延迟的结果仍然是结果。考虑容易辨别仅凭狭窄的风险，而忽略了更复杂，更长期的广泛风险，就不能避免逃避公共教育为提供最安全，最活跃的学习环境而承担的道德责任。本文介绍了广义风险的概念，以作为目前进行的狭义风险计算的对立面，并认为，在教育实践中纳入对广义风险的理解时，至少可能会有两个结果。首先是，如果考虑到随时间变化的广泛结果，经常会发现户外学习是一种风险较小的选择。第二点是，在学习的各个方面拥抱风险的价值应该成为学习过程的一部分，并成为公立学校所教内容的一部分。