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Issues and trends affecting outdoor education

This is an excerpt from Outdoor Education-2nd Edition by Ken Gilbertson,Alan Ewert,Pirkko Siklander & Timothy Bates.

Whatever definition you choose to use in describing outdoor education, recognize that there are a number of issues and trends that affect the field in general. The level of influence these impacts exert on outdoor education is often situational depending on variables such as type of program, type of students, setting, historical nature of the organization, and the actual responses made by the outdoor educator. Regardless of these and other variables, many of these impacts are global and external. By external, we mean they are present despite the program, students, and staff.

While the following are but a portion of the trends and factors affecting the broad field of outdoor education, bear in mind that how programs and organizations in outdoor education respond to these external factors will determine ultimately how efficacious the field will be in the future beyond your daily teaching techniques and methodology. Our collective hope is that outdoor education will serve as both a catalyst and touchstone from which our students can both look back to the positive aspects they experienced while in an outdoor education experience or program and look ahead to how the outdoor environment can be safeguarded for those who come after us.

Climate Change

A growing body of evidence is increasingly clear that climate change is a reality. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2021) defines climate change as a change in the state of the climate that can be identified by changes in either the mean and/or variability of the climate and that persist for an extended period of time, typically decades or longer. Whether you believe these changes are anthropogenic (human caused) or a result of natural variability, inevitably these changes will affect the outdoor settings in which many of our programs find themselves operating. For example, climate will and is having a profound impact on many aspects of the tourism industry (Buzinde et al. 2010). Factors such as ambient temperature, effects on vegetation and waterways, availability of snow, rainfall, and humidity affect not only the tourism industry but quite obviously the field of outdoor education.

Research on climate change knowledge and resultant attitudes has typically focused on primary and secondary schoolchildren with limited work done on college-age or older students. In addition, Leiserowitz et al. (2018) suggest that the curriculum of many educational institutions is often insufficient and limited. For example, Leiserowitz et al. found that few teens have an in-depth understanding of climate change, with 46% of American adults and 54% of the teenagers studied receiving a failing grade in their comprehension of climate change. Conceptual difficulties, failure to understand the difference between climate change and weather, and differing media reports all contribute to this lack of understanding.

Thus, as an educational-based field, climate change presents a dual challenge for outdoor education. First, as changes in the climate affect numerous outdoor and natural environment settings, outdoor education programs will need to adjust their programs, timing for offering courses and experiences, and types of activities presented, among other components. For example, outdoor education programs offering snow-based activities might need to change the location and time of the year.

Second, the role that outdoor education will play in educating students about the issue of climate change presents a challenge. For example, will climate change assume a greater focus and importance in outdoor education–related curricula? While programs featuring outdoor education methods and goals have generally been responsive to implementing sustainable practices such as reducing the use of plastics and other nonbiodegradable materials, as a general observation, they have been less visible in both the education and communication of climate change issues to the overall public. Whether that is or should be their role is a question yet unanswered.

More Excerpts From Outdoor Education 2nd Edition

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