Outdoor Environmental Education Research Articles

Spiritual Impact of Theocentric Outdoor Environmental Education on Affective Disposition among Malaysian Pre-service Science Teachers

Spiritual Impact of Theocentric Outdoor Environmental Education on Affective Disposition among Malaysian Pre-service Science Teachers

The Use of Outdoor Environmental Education in Educating for Sustainability: A Study for Primary Schools in HongKong

According to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4.7, by 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed for sustainable development, including through quality education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles. The rise and development of Outdoor Environmental Education (OEE) adds to the vitality of Education for Sustainability (EFS). Of all student groups, elementary school students are in the early stages of consciousness and value formation, a typical period for learning about OEE and EFS. By examining a large body of literature, this study provides an in-depth overview of the relationship between OEE and EFS, as well as the overall situation of OEE development in Hong Kong elementary school, and makes recommendations on the existing dilemmas. The study aims to provide an overall example for future research.

The enhancement path of outdoor environmental education: a case study of the education university of Hong Kong Jockey Club Primary School

The enhancement path of outdoor environmental education: a case study of the education university of Hong Kong Jockey Club Primary School

Outdoor Environmental Educators’ Views on Learning in Light of Integral Theory

Background: Outdoor environmental education (OEE) is an effective learning approach that helps prepare students to address the complex problems currently facing our world. Integral theory (IT) is a comprehensive framework that acknowledges the interconnectedness between self, society, and the environment. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the presence of four categories derived of IT – subjective, objective, intersubjective, interobjective – within OEE and to investigate the extent to which outdoor environmental educators consider learning experiences as a contribution to integral development. Methodology: Using discourse analysis, we analyzed 23 interviews from twelve outdoor environmental educators. We employed a deductive approach as we looked for evidence of IT categories and then adopted an inductive approach while analyzing participants’ discourse for general patterns related to IT and integral human development. Findings: The four categories of IT are illustrated within OEE experiences to varying degrees of representation. Outdoor environmental educators consider learning experiences as a contribution to integral development, regularly employing systems thinking, and mindfulness, among others. Implications: The findings from our study indicate a connection between OEE, teacher sensemaking, and integral education. Furthermore, OEE can be a way to facilitate integral human development, contributing to future understandings within education fields.

A Review of “Developing Place-responsive Pedagogy in Outdoor Environmental Education: A Rhizomatic Curriculum Autobiography” - A. Stewart (2020). Developing place-responsive pedagogy in outdoor environmental education: A rhizomatic curriculum autobiography. Cham, Switzerland: Springer

A Review of “<i>Developing Place-responsive Pedagogy in Outdoor Environmental Education: A Rhizomatic Curriculum Autobiography”</i> - A. Stewart (2020). Developing place-responsive pedagogy in outdoor environmental education: A rhizomatic curriculum autobiography. Cham, Switzerland: Springer

The value of outdoor environmental education programs for girls and youth of color: cultivating positive dispositions toward science and the environment

Outdoor environmental education (OEE) programs can provide a valuable entry point for youth of color and girls who may have felt excluded and/or marginalized from traditional science learning experiences. This study investigated: (1) Can OEE programs contribute to the development of positive dispositions toward science and the environment?, and (2) Are there differences in effects by racial/ethnic and gender identity, or interactions thereof? Youth (n = 457; grades 4-6, approximate ages 9-12) reported their dispositions toward science and the environment along 5 scales before and after participating in OEE programs. Results found growth across all subscales for youth overall. Girls showed stronger effects than boys, and youth of color showed stronger effects than White youth. Girls of color showed particularly strong growth in Comfort in Nature. The implications of these results, particularly as a challenge to long-standing biases and inequities in the field, are discussed.

Connecting schools and communities: a look at place-based learning and equitable access in SF Bay Area outdoor environmental education

Outdoor environmental education aims to immerse students in environmental spaces and create opportunities for classroom learning to be applied in the field. However, students from Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) and low-income communities often have less access to these educational opportunities. This study examined the environmental education programs of nine community organizations in the San Francisco (SF) Bay Area. Through twenty-one interviews with program educators, we assessed two areas: (1) place-based learning being used as a connective tool for students and the community, and (2) ways in which access barriers to programming were addressed. Findings showed that community spaces, like gardens, brought students and the community together to reinforce the mission of place-based learning. Additionally, the findings contribute to the field of outdoor environmental education and place-based education by addressing how local organizations strategized to support equitable access through tactics like financial support and multilingual programming and materials.

‘Watching what they can do on their own is beautiful’: A navigation of shared agency in school-based outdoor environmental education

ABSTRACT Reorientating education away from test scores can empower students as agents of their own learning experiences. Outdoor environmental education (OEE) is one way that teachers and students can co-author learning. This study’s purpose was to examine the lived experiences of outdoor environmental educators who navigate sharing agency with students and place. From a phenomenological interpretive framework, we interviewed 12 participants who implement OEE on a regular basis within a K-12 setting. We analyzed participant narratives using a whole-part-whole approach, discovering five key themes that highlight how teachers build and curate outdoor learning experiences that create conditions for student agentic participation. Navigating a shared agency amongst teachers, students, and place is a complex and ongoing process that disrupts the traditional classroom hierarchy. OEE can be an effective pathway through which to empower students as agents of their own learning, supporting their development as engaged learners and democratizing education.

WalkingScapes as ecopedagogy

This study of ecologically lived experience focuses on walking as a sensory, embodied practice with/in Nature and extends the emergent conceptual and empirical literature on ecopedagogy as/in scapes. The scope is outdoor environmental education in Australia, where walking is practiced as bushwalking in relatively natural environments. This cultural construct of bushwalking is problematic due to the standardized and instrumentalized logics of practice. The embodied ecopedagogical qualities and characteristics are under researched and get lost in the commodified bush. Two purposes are examined. One, to presence the felt and affective dimensions of environmental learning. Second, to contribute to the existing practice theorization of ecopedagogy as/in scapes, both of which advance the field of outdoor and environmental education and their research. In this first person study, two cases are presented and inductively interpreted as a grounded theorization of walkingScapes as ecopedagogy.

Differential response of three large mammal species to human recreation in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, USA

Outdoor recreation benefits local economies, environmental education, and public health and wellbeing, but it can also adversely affect local ecosystems. Human presence in natural areas alters feeding and reproductive behaviors, physiology, and population structure in many wildlife species, often resulting in cascading effects through entire ecological communities. As outdoor recreation gains popularity, existing trails are becoming overcrowded and new trails are being built to accommodate increasing use. Many recreation impact studies have investigated effects of the presence or absence of humans while few have investigated recreation effects on wildlife using a gradient of disturbance intensity. We used camera traps to quantify trail use by humans and mid- to large-sized mammals in an area of intense outdoor recreation–the Upper East River Valley, Colorado, USA. We selected five trails with different types and intensities of human use and deployed six cameras on each trail for five weeks during a COVID-enhanced 2020 summer tourism season. We used occupancy models to estimate detectability and habitat use of the three most common mammal species in the study area and determined which human activities affect the habitat use patterns of each species. Human activities affected each species differently. Mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) tended to use areas with more vehicles, more predators, and greater distances from the trailhead, and they were more likely to be detected where there were more bikers. Coyotes (Canis latrans) and red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) were most likely to use areas where their prey species occurred, and foxes were more likely to be detected where the vegetation was shorter. Humans and their recreational activities differentially influence different species. More generally, these results reinforce that it is unlikely that a single management policy is suitable for all species and management should thus be tailored for each target species.

Education “through” sustainable development in Swedish school-age educare – exploring how SAEC is responding to ESD in daily practices

ABSTRACT This article aims to explore how extended education in Sweden, School-age educare (SAEC), is responding to education for sustainable development (ESD), since these two educational practices have not that often been combined nor related in research. The exploratory findings are based on a small-scale case study in one municipality; including three in-depth examples from practice. The results reveal different kind of activities in the centres visited, as well as different approaches to education for sustainable development within SAEC. The cases show activities related to traditional outdoor environmental education, to social justice and global issues, and also as meaning making through play-based activities. The results were further analysed in relation to core concepts within extended education as well as ESD, exploring the “missing link”, but also new possibilities of ESD when part of an extended educational practice. The main conclusion of the analyses is that SAEC activities related to ESD offers education through sustainable development by active participation in various forms and contexts, as also currently suggested in policy and by scholars. By explicitly focusing ESD in the educational context of Swedish school-age educare, a missing link in this area of research was pinpointed paving the way for further research, and increased awareness in practice.

Learning landscapes through technology and movement: blurring boundaries for a more-than-human pedagogy

ABSTRACT Interest in the role of technology and movement is growing in outdoor environmental education (OEE) research. However, there are many unexamined assumptions involving both non-digital technology and movement for outdoor learners. In this paper, we explore learning landscapes through non-digital technology and movement involving canoe journeys in south-eastern Australia. We examine ways that technology and movement come together to help shape learning orientations through situated examples from OEE fieldwork. Our investigations utilise posthumanist and process-relational theories for exploring onto-epistemological dimensions of outdoor learning. We bring such theory into conversation with photos, videos and student essays to analyse our fieldwork contexts. We highlight that technology and movement cannot be taken for granted; rather, they help constitute the ways we come to know places. We also acknowledge some cultural and conceptual aspects that overlap to influence learning. This paper offers alternative insights for learning landscapes and the mediating influence of technologies.

Lessons for becoming bison wise and bear aware in Elk Island National Park

ABSTRACT Biospheres are working landscapes that promote conservation and sustainable land-use while also providing space for outdoor recreation, environmental education, and research. This study focuses on Elk Island National Park in Alberta, Canada, which is part of the Beaver Hills Biosphere. The park is home to bison and black bears and growing visitor numbers have increased the potential for human-wildlife conflict. With a focus on the promotion of human-wildlife coexistence, this study takes a mixed-methods approach to develop and evaluate an environmental education program targeted to improve visitor awareness about safety around bison and bears at Elk Island National Park. The program was found to be effective in teaching visitors about safe behaviors around wildlife and key themes arose about important learning outcomes. In particular, the findings indicate interpretation and environmental education programs have the potential to increase awareness about safety for both humans and wildlife and shift away from more human-centric perceptions.

Plural relational green space values for whom, when, and where? – A social media approach

The values people ascribe to their interactions with and within the environment are essential to inform justice and sustainability transformations. The development of many of these values unfolds through enjoying so-called cultural ecosystem services (CES) such as outdoor recreation, landscape aesthetics or environmental education. A growing body of literature is improving the assessment of the multiple ways that people value human and non-human relations arising when enjoying CES. Yet, the geo-temporal-demographic patterns of values distribution and the lessons that can be derived are to be consistently analysed within this relational framework. Building on a visual and textual content analysis of social media (SM) data geotagged in a peri-urban park of Barcelona, Spain, this research explores the potential of analysing the associated metadata (such as geotag, timestamp and social media users' demographics – i.e., performed gender and residency) in order to develop a better understanding of the linkages between people's values and the situated context of their construction. Our results show trends in relational CES values distribution along and between the analysed spatial, temporal, and demographic dimensions. In particular, despite there being a multiplicity of values revealed across the whole case-study area, to enjoy contemplative CES, such as spiritual or cognitive value, people need to move away from highly frequented areas and prefer specific times of the day, respectively evening or afternoon. Locals show a higher preference to visit the park on weekends compared to non-locals, while women-performing users show a significantly higher drop in their CES benefits uptake compared to men-performing users at night. In addition to providing novel and fine-grained information for transformative practices toward justice and sustainability, this study highlights the importance of complementing CES studies employing SM with metadata analysis to improve our understanding of the relationship between the real and the more-than-real.

‘I know how to say it, but I still don’t know it in my hands’: examining practices and epistemology in Forest Education

In recent years, Forest Education has gained increasing traction around the world. Yet its unique features, as well as their relations with other outdoor environmental education approaches, remain undertheorized. This study explores the pedagogical practices of one emerging strand of Forest Education, and the epistemology underpinning it, in order to better position it with respect to other environmental education approaches. The study is based on ethnographic fieldwork that included participatory observations and interviews in a leading Israeli Forest Education organization. We identified four key pedagogical practices: outdoor play, primitive skills and crafts, sensing, and dwelling. These, we argue, reflect an epistemology in which knowledge and learning are situated in the immediate embodied context and sensory experiences, and are intended to facilitate a meaningful connection with nature. This epistemology prioritizes such modes of learning over abstraction, generalization and transfer, which are often central to science-oriented environmental education approaches.

Culturally sustaining pedagogy in an outdoor environmental science education program to support high school students’ identities as Indigenous people and scientists

This collaboration between the Nez Perce Tribe and the University of Idaho aimed to address the unique needs and perspectives required for Tribal Natural Resources Management (TNRM). TNRM involves the governance and caretaking of the land and waters, emphasizing the recognition of cultural significance, sovereignty, self-determination, and traditional knowledge systems. A workforce development program was created, focusing on Fisheries, Forestry, and Fire Management, while being grounded in Indigenous knowledge, Indigenous STEM identities, and culturally sustaining pedagogy. The philosophical foundations of the program emphasized the importance of integrating Indigenous knowledge and learning approaches alongside technical skills. By broadening the conceptions of “what counts” in science, students were encouraged to recognize the value of Indigenous knowledge and develop a sense of responsibility toward caring for the Land and waters. Data collected from the program revealed its success in helping students connect Indigenous ways of knowing to their understanding of STEM. Students found meaning in Indigenous knowledge as a means to perpetuate Nimiipuu lifeways, while also recognizing the utility of Western STEM. The involvement of Elders and Native professionals as teachers in the STEM curriculum highlighted the importance of intergenerational knowledge transmission. By combining Indigenous ways of knowing with technical skills, the program successfully laid the groundwork for students to become future leaders in Tribal Natural Resources Management, equipped with the necessary cultural, environmental, and scientific expertise to caretake Lands and waters effectively.

“I had a spider in my mouth”: What makes students happy in outdoor environmental education programs

The study contributes to program design and evaluation practice in outdoor environmental education by identifying instructional strategies crucial for student satisfaction. Student satisfaction is a major factor in the overall success of outdoor environmental education programs. While the impact of these programs on student knowledge, attitudes, and behavior has been assessed often, student satisfaction has been subject of much less research. This study analyzes student satisfaction with four outdoor environmental education programs in the Czech Republic. The authors collected qualitative (N = 68) and quantitative (N = 323) data from the program participants after they had completed their respective programs. According to the results, the students appreciate a clearly defined program with meaningful activities. Also important is the role of the program leader and the students’ having the opportunity to influence the activities during their free time in the program. Student satisfaction can in some cases be decreased by challenging weather and by demanding social interactions with their peers.

Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats: a SWOT analysis of a long-term outdoor environmental education program in Israel

Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats: a SWOT analysis of a long-term outdoor environmental education program in Israel

No connectivity, better connections: teenagers’ experiences of a phone-free summer camp in the United States

ABSTRACT Phones have become pervasive in many teenagers’ lives, and outdoor educators are increasingly faced with making decisions regarding technology. This case study sheds light on the complex relationship between teenagers, phones and residential outdoor environmental education by exploring the experiences of participants at a phone-free summer camp in the US. It was conducted over six weeks and gathered evidence from individual interviews, focus group interviews and unstructured conversations. The three main findings were: (1) participants expressed overwhelmingly positive attitudes towards the experience, especially regarding social interactions. (2) This positive experience was perceived to only be possible at CIFC, where an engaging programme and a strong community supported participants in their phone-free experience. (3) As a result of (2), teenagers expressed concerns about applying their experience outside of camp. These findings have important implications for practitioners and contribute to pedagogical discussions regarding phones on outdoor environmental education programmes.

Why travel far to learn? A study of environmental behaviour change experience of residential outdoor environmental education participants

ABSTRACT Residential outdoor environmental education (ROEE) is commonly used to educate people about the environment. This research focuses on the participants’ subjective perceptions of the impact of the drag and drop approach used in ROEE courses on changing their environmental behaviour and the extent to which the changes (if any) are sustained. The study adopted a narrative approach and used the transtheoretical model (TTM) as the theoretical framework for the investigation. Eleven former participants of the ROEE courses were interviewed. The interview data were analysed by using the method of individual narrative and thematic analysis. The study found that the ROEE courses did not change the participants’ environmental attitudes and behaviour in a significant way due to three explanations: i) sociocultural differences between locations; ii) unsuitable contents, and iii) discontinued learning experience and intervention. This study provides extensive suggestions of how the practice of ROEE courses can be improved which is based on the participants’ narrative of unsuccessful learning intervention approaches.