Description:
Improving human-nature relationships is often a stated aim of outdoor education, yet this aim is not always made explicit in practice. This paper reflects on a pedagogical intervention which aims to find ways to explicitly develop students' connections with natural places through a tertiary outdoor and environmental education program. It describes the intervention process, which is guided by principles of collaborative action research. Furthermore, the intervention uses a multi-pronged teaching approach incorporating repeated visits to natural places utilising different 'ways of knowing', weekly readings, journal writing, collaborative discussions, and others. The paper summarizes the key findings of the research project and report that repeated visits to a natural place using different ways of knowing (e.g., historical, scientific, ecological, artistic, experiential, etc) are influential in improving connections. It concludes with a discussion of the opportunities and dilemmas of using action research as a form of pedagogy. [Author abstract, ed]
Description:
This paper describes the author's experience in attempting to assist tertiary students connect with the natural environment through outdoor and environmental education experiences. The paper addresses research conducted with students undertaking an outdoor and environmental education degree and focuses on the pedagogical methods employed in this context. It argues that outdoor and environmental education practitioners may benefit from moving away from a mode of teaching based upon 'generic' methods and look instead to a more local, specific and contextual form of education. By describing an outdoor and environmental education journey in a local, 'ordinary' place and students' experiences in unearthing the stories embedded in this place, the paper aims to provide some practical strategies to engage young people in a direct and meaningful way. The intention is to broaden the pedagogical possibilities related to facilitating experiences in natural environments and thus contribute to bridging the rhetoric/reality gap in outdoor education. [Author abstract, ed]