‘It's good for their self-esteem’: the substance beneath the label

This paper provides an informed and critical understanding of the concept of self-esteem. It explores this psychological construct in relation to its use in adventure education and outdoor learning. Enhancing a participant's self-esteem is perceived to be fundamentally a good thing and is culturally linked to the Hahnian notion that implies outdoor education is good for character-building and more recently personal development. This paper suggests that the improvement of self-esteem has become a reified programme outcome as well as an argument for the value and importance of outdoor education programmes. In this paper I seek to address the often uncritical and at times evangelical claim that outdoor programmes enhance self-esteem. This paper looks at the development of self-esteem generally and then considers its appearance in the outdoor education literature. Aspects of this that relate to outdoor learning and adventure education include: development of the self, behaviour, disaffected young people, recent UK developments and common misconceptions regarding self-esteem. These are explored and their implications for practice and research are considered. The essence of this paper is that outdoor educators need to be more critical, informed and specific about exactly what it is they are trying to achieve, how their programmes are evaluated, particularly with outcomes that are related to potential changes in ‘self’ and how these changes are measured.     

Developing sustainability-literate citizens through outdoor learning: possibilities for outdoor education in Higher Education

UNESCO's challenge to Higher Education institutions to provide educational leadership in sustainable development, provides an impetus to develop innovative, interdisciplinary curricula and pedagogy. Whereas Higher Education curricula in sustainability and sustainable development have tended to come from the environmental sciences, recent studies have highlighted the need for more holistic, experiential, interdisciplinary approaches. As a pedagogical approach, outdoor learning may have something to offer since it lends itself to holistic and experiential learning and enables integration of knowledge and skills from a range of discipline areas. Outdoor and environmental education research suggests that educational experiences in outdoor settings can be significant in developing environmental sensitivity and knowledge. Such knowledge and attitudes are components of ecological literacy and, more recently, sustainability literacy. This paper considers how outdoor experiential pedagogy might contribute to the current sustainability education agenda. It focuses on Higher Education since this sector has the obligation and the capability of instigating a ‘ripple’ effect' in developing sustainability-literate citizens. It discusses possibilities and issues arising from a review of outdoor, environmental and sustainability education literature, particularly, but not exclusively, from the UK. The paper is a precursor to an empirical study into how outdoor learning might contribute to the development of sustainability-literate graduates.     

Students’ imaginings of spaces of learning in Outdoor and Environmental Education

In this article, I interrogate students’ stories about the spaces and places in a tertiary Outdoor and Environmental Education course that support and shape their environmental ethics. Drawing on a longitudinal qualitative study, I explore the ways in which particular sites of learning (outdoor, practical learning) are privileged and how particular stories of outdoor spaces get reproduced. I employ the work of poststructuralist geography scholar Doreen Massey in my analysis to highlight the intersections between space, relations of power and identity. This analysis also underscores the simultaneity of multiple and conflicting stories around Outdoor Education’s outdoor (practical) and indoor (theoretical) learning spaces. I conclude by drawing on Elizabeth Ellsworth’s work on anomalous places of learning to explore some of the spaces in-between the indoor/outdoor binary as a way of interrupting and re-imagining places and spaces of learning in Outdoor Education.     

An Exploration of Pre-Service Teachers' Experiences in Outdoor ‘Places’ and Intentions for Teaching in the Outdoors

This study explores pre-service teachers' past interactions with ‘place’ in outdoor settings and how these experiences contribute to their current perceptions of the importance of taking their own students into the outdoors. Specifically, the researchers were interested in investigating if current pre-service teachers are part of the ‘nature-deficit disorder' generation described by Louv in his book, Last child in the woods: Saving our children from nature-deficit disorder (2005 Louv, R. (2005). Last child in the woods: Saving our children from nature deficit disorder. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books. [Google Scholar]), as a generation of children growing up without direct experiences in nature. Study participants included 148 undergraduate pre-service elementary teachers enrolled in science teaching methods instructional courses at an urban college in the Northeastern United States and two suburban universities in the Southeastern United States. Participants wrote essay responses after reading Louv's Last Child in the Woods in which they were asked to relate the reading to their own past experiences and their ideas about elementary science education. Results indicate that a large majority of participants (97%) describe significant youth experiences in the outdoors, view nature as important in varying ways (89.9%), and express a desire to expose their own students to the outdoors (65.5%). Key findings are illustrated with direct quotations from the pre-service teachers' essay responses, as they write vividly of their interactions in outdoor places, referred to as ‘place meanings'. Implications are presented for teacher educators working with pre-service teachers to build upon their outdoor experiences and prepare them for implementing nature-based instruction.     

论现代城市雕塑的趣味整体和谐

现代雕塑摆脱了写实主义的束缚,摆脱了精确的比例和严格透视和羁绊,从单纯的模仿以及对物象的准确再现,走向以人为中心,寻求人与外界各方面联系,追求整体的和谐,以便通过联系创作价值并获得精神享受,这从根本上是一个观念的变革。     

Hiker on trail: Information practices in the wild. A mixed methods approach to investigate real-time mobile technology use by long-distance backpackers

Long distance hikers' information practices are considered via an ‘in-field’ methodology that generated rich experiential data. Participants documented and reflected on their experiences and use of mobile digital technology while undertaking a two-week coast-to-coast walk across the Scottish Highlands. Empirical evidence on the adoption and use of mobile digital technology by backpackers, and the implications this has for their practices and interactions is scarce. “Research in the Wild” (RITW) mixed methods facilitated exploration of how and why mobile digital technology is employed via analysis of in-field video-logs, interviews with eight participants, and a survey. Analysis of the research interview data provides insights into fieldwork participants' reactions to, and experiences with, the methods employed. The affordances and issues of the approach are discussed, highlighting the benefits and challenges of mixed methods for Human Computer Interaction and Information Behavior research in the arena of outdoor recreation.     

More than activities: using a ‘sense of place’ to enrich student experience in adventure sport

There has been increasing interest in recent years in the significance of a sense of place in the literature of outdoor adventure education. In the UK relationships between outdoor education and the environment still appear largely focused on the science of the natural environment and the activity in question. In this paper, we present empirical evidence from an action research project to demonstrate how a combination of formal and informal pedagogy in a higher education context can lead to a sociocultural and historical understanding of place and enrich the learning experience of students when teaching the classical outdoor adventurous activity of sailing. The sport of dinghy sailing is a module within a Bachelor's undergraduate degree in outdoor education and was taught from a small fishing town in Devon, England. We adopted an integrated and experiential critical pedagogy of place that allowed theory and practice, thought and action to be a holistic experience, and this approach provided opportunities for informal, as well as formal learning. This action research project explored the impact on the student experience when sailing skills were developed along with a sense of place. It used methods including: photo-elicitation, focus group interviews and evidence from the analysis of written student assignments. Our findings show that students discover a significance of the meaningful relationship between the sociocultural history of where that activity takes place and the activity itself and that as a result their experience of the learning and research process was enriched.     

城市雕塑与城市

城市雕塑是城市空间的艺术。一件好的城市雕塑作品,应该考虑到城市环境、城市文化、城市公众三方面的因素。一件好的城市雕塑作品,也应该出于自身的体验和某种心态的自然流露。     

Falling into LINE: school strategies for overcoming challenges associated with learning in natural environments (LINE)

As the benefits of outdoor learning have become of increasing interest to the education sector, so the importance of understanding and overcoming challenges associated with this pedagogy has gained greater significance. The Natural Connections Demonstration Project recruited primary, secondary, and special schools across south-west England with a view to stimulating and supporting ‘learning in the natural environment’ across the region. This research paper examines qualitative data obtained from case study visits to 12 of these schools. The results from teaching staff interviews and focus groups show that schools face many and varied challenges to embedding outdoor learning, and a raft of strategies are presented for tackling these challenges and integrating learning in the natural environment into much of the current curriculum.