scholarly journals We love them anyway: outdoor environmental education programs from the accompanying teachers’ perspective

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Cincera ◽  
Jan Zalesak ◽  
Miloslav Kolenaty ◽  
Petra Simonova ◽  
Bruce Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Education ◽  
Education Programs ◽  
Outdoor Environmental Education

scholarly journals Real World Learning: a critical analysis

Envigogika ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Činčera
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Education ◽  
Real World ◽  
Behavioral Change ◽  
Quality Criteria ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Education Programs ◽  
Hand Model ◽  
Outdoor Environmental Education ◽  
Emancipatory Learning ◽  
Real World Learning

The paper analyses the so called “Hand model”, invented as a part of The Real World learning international project. The aim of the model was to provide guidance for outdoor environmental education programs. In the analysis, it is suggested that the model suffers from inconsistency between its efforts to establish quality criteria consistent with self-directed, emancipatory learning, and its instrumental ambition to promote behavioral change. In the same way, the model provides a new point of view on outdoor environmental education programs, namely on values and frames communicated by the programs.

scholarly journals Values Education in Outdoor Environmental Education Programs from the Perspective of Practitioners

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 4700
Author(s):  
Jan Činčera ◽  
Bruce Johnson ◽  
Roman Kroufek ◽  
Petra Šimonová
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Education ◽  
Values Education ◽  
Education Programs ◽  
Program Leaders ◽  
Education Practice ◽  
Outdoor Environmental Education ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Normative Practice ◽  
Practice Gap ◽  
Theory Practice Gap

Shaping environmental values is considered one of the goals of environmental education. At the same time, this creates questions about the line between indoctrination and education. While values education has been widely discussed from various theoretical perspectives, few studies have analyzed how it is being practiced. This article investigates five outdoor environmental education programs and identifies the values the programs promote as well as the means they use to communicate these values to students. Additionally, the article examines the perspectives of 17 program leaders and center directors regarding the ways in which values should be promoted in environmental education and the approaches they use in their practice. According to the findings, all the observed programs applied a normative, value-laden approach, communicating mainly the values of universalism. The most frequently observed strategy was the inculcation of desirable values by moralizing and modeling. Simultaneously, some of the leaders’ beliefs, while highlighting value-free or pluralistic approaches, contradicted their rather normative practice. This article describes the theory–practice gap identified and discusses the implications of the prevailing use of the normative approach in outdoor environmental education for the field. It calls for opening an in-depth debate on what, why, and how values belong in outdoor environmental education practice.

scholarly journals Real World Learning in Outdoor Environmental Education Programs

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Činčera ◽  
Bruce Johnson ◽  
Roman Kroufek ◽  
Miloslav Kolenatý ◽  
Petra Šimonová ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Education ◽  
Real World ◽  
Quality Criteria ◽  
Environmental Values ◽  
Education Programs ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Program Leaders ◽  
Outdoor Environmental Education ◽  
Real World Learning ◽  
And Behavior

This book analyzes the theoretical frameworks shaping the practice of outdoor environmental education programs. For the analyses, the authors applied the Real World Learning Model that defines the quality criteria for this kind of practice. They also further examined the Model from the perspectives of relevant theory and research, as well as from the perspectives of program leaders, accompanying teachers, and participating students. Specifically, the authors selected five programs, all three to five days long, offered by Czech outdoor environmental education centers for students in the 3rd to 7th grades and focused on shaping students’ environmental values and behavior.

scholarly journals Frames in Outdoor Environmental Education Programs: What We Communicate and Why We Think It Matters

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 4451
Author(s):  
Jan Činčera ◽  
Bruce Johnson ◽  
Roman Kroufek ◽  
Miloslav Kolenatý ◽  
Petra Šimonová
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Education ◽  
Elementary School Students ◽  
Frame Analysis ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
Student Interest ◽  
Main Program ◽  
Education Programs ◽  
School Students ◽  
Program Leaders ◽  
Outdoor Environmental Education

This paper discusses the application of frame analysis as a method of designing and evaluating outdoor environmental education programs. In particular, it investigates what frames are communicated in these programs, why and how program leaders focus on communicating particular frames, and how students interact with these frames. Five outdoor environmental education programs for elementary school students were analyzed. We used a qualitative approach that combined field observation, interviews with program leaders (N = 15), qualitative findings based on questionnaires collected from the participants after completing the programs (N = 365), and interviews with some of the students (N = 10). According to the results, while the leaders intensively applied various surface frames to attract student interest and organize the program activities, the deep frames aimed for in the main program messages connected with the program goals often remained implicit and were not recognized by the students.

Thinking with a landscape: the Australian Alps, horses and pedagogical considerations

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Scott Jukes
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Education ◽  
Educational Research ◽  
Specific Problem ◽  
Geographical Location ◽  
Outdoor Environmental Education ◽  
Australian Alps ◽  
Environmental Educators ◽  
Multiple Species ◽  
Constructing Knowledge

Abstract This paper proposes some possibilities for thinking with a landscape as a pedagogical concept, inspired by posthuman theory. The idea of thinking with a landscape is enacted in the Australian Alps (AA), concentrating on the contentious environmental dilemma involving introduced horses and their management in this bio-geographical location. The topic of horses is of pedagogical relevance for place-responsive outdoor environmental educators as both a location-specific problem and an example of a troubling issue. The paper has two objectives for employing posthuman thinking. Firstly, it experiments with the alternative methodological possibilities that posthuman theory affords for outdoor environmental education, including new ways of conducting educational research. Secondly, it explores how thinking with a landscape as a pedagogical concept may help open ways of considering the dilemma that horses pose. The pedagogical concept is enacted through some empirical events which sketch human–horse encounters from the AA. These sketches depict some of the pedagogical conversations and discursive pathways that encounters can provoke. Such encounters and conversations are ways of constructing knowledge of the landscape, covering multiple species, perspectives and discursive opportunities. For these reasons, this paper may be of relevance for outdoor environmental educators, those interested in the AA or posthuman theorists.

Following lines in the landscape: Playing with a posthuman pedagogy in outdoor environmental education

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Scott Jukes ◽  
Alistair Stewart ◽  
Marcus Morse
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Environmental Education ◽  
Education Students ◽  
Outdoor Environmental Education ◽  
Paradigmatic Structure ◽  
Affective Dimensions ◽  
New Empiricism

Abstract Situated within a series of river journeys, this inquiry considers the role of material landscape in shaping learning possibilities and explores practices of reading landscapes diffractively. We consider ways we might pay attention to the ever-changing flux of places while experimenting with posthuman pedagogical praxis. Methodologically, we embrace the post-qualitative provocation to do research differently by enacting a new empiricism that does not ground the inquiry in a paradigmatic structure. In doing so, we rethink conventional notions of method and data as we create a series of short videos from footage recorded during canoeing journeys with tertiary outdoor environmental education students. These videos, along with a student poem, form the empirical materials in this project. Video allows us to closely analyse more-than-human entanglements, contemplating the diverse ways we can participate with and read landscapes in these contexts. We aim to provoke diffractive thought and elicit affective dimensions of material encounters, rather than offer representational findings. This project intends to open possibilities for post-qualitative research, inspired by posthuman and new materialist orientations.

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