“Although I was alone, I always felt accompanied”: the experiences of adolescent girls walking in a forest

Abstract

ABSTRACT How do adolescent girls interact with nature? Which affordances do they perceive and enact in nature-rich environments? Drawing on outdoor empirical research, which mobilises cultural probes, walking, and semi-structured interviews as key methodological devices, this article provides possible answers to the research questions, as well as further interrogations issued from our analysis. Our research contributes to the field by developing new knowledge on the affordances of nature-rich environments for adolescents, in the context of informal environmental education and outdoor learning experiences. In this study, affordances are understood as ways along which the world comes into presence to human beings, providing contingently relational possibilities for interaction. The findings highlight that these teenagers’ experiences, were potentially transformative, bringing a higher sense of connection with more-than-human realms. They extend knowledge on adolescents’ ways of perceiving and interacting with nature, revealing previously unnoticed affordances, such as listen-ability, the affordances of the weather, and depict-ability.