A total of 268 primary school children (age 8.75 ± 0.65) spent one day at a wildlife park attending environmental education aiming at high cognitive achievement and motivation alongside maintained discipline. To accomplish this at an out-of-school learning setting, we compared our preferred 'guided learning at workstations' (G) combining the advantages of instructional and constructivist characteristics to a strong teacher-centered (T) and student-centered (S) approach also following workstations. We found higher knowledge values in the approaches with didactic leaders (T and G) while situational emotions did not differ between approaches. Results and implications are discussed in the context of environmental outdoor education.