Moving on an effortless journey: Paddling, river-places and outdoor education

‘Why are we here?’ Taking ‘place’ into account in UK outdoor environmental education

“…Within the English-speaking world, 1 this writing can be largely divided into two areas: American 'place-based education' (Bishop, 2004;Gruenewald & Smith, 2008;Knapp, 2005;Orr, 1992;Smith, 2002;Sobel, 2004;Woodhouse & Knapp, 2001), which is focused on educational institutions embracing the local community and environment as part of the learning context. The second area consists of considerable Australian and Canadian writing on 'place' in outdoor environmental education (Brookes, 1998(Brookes, , 2002a(Brookes, , 2002bCurthoys, 2007;Gough, 2008;Henderson, 2001;Preston, 2004;Preston & Griffiths, 2004;Slattery, 2001;Stewart, 2003Stewart, , 2004Stewart, , 2006aStewart, , 2006bStewart, , 2008Wattchow, , 2008. The focus of this writing is on outdoor educators and the presence, or lack, of place-responsiveness in stand-alone environmental education programmes.…”

More than relations between self, others and nature: outdoor education and aesthetic experience

“…2. The work of Abram, which builds on that of Merleau-Ponty as well as Husserl, is sometimes cited in outdoor education (see, e.g., Cohn, 2011;Payne & Wattchow, 2008;Wattchow, 2007Wattchow, , 2008. However, it would be difficult to use Abram's work to prosecute my argument in this paper as he does not clarify the ontological difference, instead employing terms that more closely align with transaction, such as 'intertwined' and 'reciprocate' (Abram, 1996, p. 33), in attempts to convey a simple aesthetic whole.…”

Experiencing Beach in Australia: Study Abroad Students' Perspectives

“…In relation to outdoor environmental education, wilderness extends into two aspects: wilderness to be technologically conquered; and wilderness to be worshiped as the dualistically contraposed antipode of the industrial urban (Cameron, 2001;Cronon, 1996). For example, while Wattchow (2008a) maintained that belonging, or "an intimate, sensory and an embodied response to the river place itself" (p. 12), as a theme that was identified among his students and that it possessed a great value for the placeresponsive pedagogy in outdoor environmental education, he (2007) also observed two major differing themes, "rivercraft" and "romancing the river" which both derive from the concept of wilderness. Rivercraft refers to concerns related to one's skills for the mastery of wilderness, while romancing the river is a perspective in which nature as wilderness is separated from human and its abstract experience is prioritised over the experience in the river place itself.…”

“…Despite the pedagogical difficulties associated with uncritically assuming that students, local or international, can fleetingly belong somewhere or in some place in the current social condition in Australia, successful outcomes of place-responsive pedagogies have been reported and claimed (Stewart, 2004;Wattchow, 2008a). However, as Wattchow (2007) also observed among his students, different types of place experience other than belonging can be identified in place-responsive outdoor environmental education.…”