Nature is in many ways considered a source to both physical and mental health among people. Trends in today’s society reveal that children become more distanced to nature. Seen from the perspective of sustainable development this trend is considered crucial: it is of importance that children in their early ages experience nature positively in order to develop a dedication towards environmental issues as adults. The purpose of this study is to investigate how teachers use outdoor learning as an educational tool. Research data were collected through a series of interviews. Teachers from two different primary schools were interviewed, and one of the schools is oriented towards outdoor education. The data were analyzed based on the teachers’ ideas of children’s attitudes towards, and possibilities to, spending time in their natural surroundings. The results show that all participating teachers are of the opinion that children today generally spend less time outdoors. This could partly be connected to the increased range of technical products that makes spending time indoors more appealing. The parents’ influence in terms of passing on their attitudes towards nature to their children is considered an important factor. The teachers use their understanding of the pupils’ needs of outdoor experiences as a starting point in their outdoor educational activities. All participating teachers emphasize health, outdoor activities, environmental education and both personal and social development as significant parts of outdoor education. Our conclusion based on this study emphasizes the ability to mediate sustainable approaches towards nature as an important part of teachers’ work in outdoor education. The teachers are committed to their work with passion and consequently they provide positive nature experiences to the pupils. Perhaps emotion and empathy for nature is the most significant part of what teachers pass on to their pupils through outdoor education with an aim for sustainable development.

This study characterizes the content and internal structure of a set of conceptions of outdoor education. Fifty-four English speaking Canadian university programs or courses which were labelled, or contained as essential parts of their descriptions. The term outdoor education or any of a series of related terms provide the basis for analysis. A conception is defined as a coordinated set of central concepts, values and procedures which are explicit or implicit in course documents. The study employed a methodological triangulation. Content analysis of course documents provided the description of the values, central concepts and procedures associated with each course. Q methodology was performed by course conductors to review the 'values' and 'central concepts' components found in the content analysis and to express their views of the significance of those values and central concepts. A focused interview was conducted with fourteen course developers to confirm, refute or extend previously obtained data. Q methodology produced a typology of outdoor education comprising five primary conceptions¹ and one secondary conception: The Outdoor Recreationist, The Adventurer, The Education, The Life Skills Entrepreneur, The Environmentalist, Distinguishing features of each conception and features common among the primary conceptions are discussed. Focused interviews produced information about course conductor attitudes and training , the program's relationship with other fields of study, the concept's need for clarification, the need for a common knowledge base in outdoor education, and its relationship with the natural environment, teaching, recreation and education. Suggestions for further investigation are briefly discussed. "Environmentalist", "The Educator", "The Life Skills Entrepreneur", and "The Administrator" are heuristic devices which refer to an ideal type of individual who embodies a co-ordinated set of central concepts, values, and procedures which are explicit or implicit a conception of outdoor education.

This study used Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice and analyzed African Americans’ under-representation at parks and in outdoor recreation. It focused on Cedar Hill State Park (CHSP) located in Cedar Hill, Texas and investigated local African Americans’ non-visitation to the park. The study also explored how fear of racism impacts middle class African Americans’ travel choices and how they negotiate constraints associated with racism. This study is guided by four research questions: (1) What factors prevent local African Americans’ visitation to CHSP? (2) How does Bourdieu’s concepts and theory explain African Americans’ non-visitation to CHSP and other outdoor recreation sites? (3) How does racism impact middle class African Americans’ travel choices? and (4) How do they negotiate fear of racism when they travel? A qualitative research approach was employed in this study. Archival method, site visits, and fact-to-face interview with 13 local African Americans were conducted. Data collection was implemented from October 2012 to March 2013. The collected data provided rich information related to the phenomenon under investigation. First, racism was interwoven with the history of local community and Texas state parks. There has been a rapid increase of Black populations and white flight at cities around CHSP. Many incidents of racial discrimination were found in the history of the community and Texas state parks. Second, this study identified that (1) lack of information and encouragement, (2) lack of interest/cultural irrelevance, (3) lack of attraction, and (4) fear of racism were four main reasons African Americans do not visit CHSP or other state and national parks. These four reasons were closely interrelated with each other and commonly held racism as an underlying theme. The findings illustrated that racism is a foundation of the under-representation issue.

While outdoor recreation resources may be developed as infrastructure to benefit the tourist economy, through community-based planning efforts such developments can achieve a wider range of community benefits. This research project examines the role of outdoor recreation development in urban and regional planning strategies enabling a deeper understanding about how these amenities can enhance our communities and make them more resilient, diverse, and healthy. Stakeholder interviews and user surveys focusing on the implications of the ongoing development of the City of Revelstoke BC bicycle network were conducted to further inform this study. The Integral framework adopted in the analysis proved to be valuable for the inclusion of a broad range of perspectives. Nine recommendations are identified with relevance for the planning profession, suggesting that outdoor recreation can play a significant role in community building, enhancing social equity, and providing a means of urban enhancement. The research findings indicate that collaborative partnerships are vital to the planning process towards creating valued outdoor recreation amenities that align with local community perceptions, while creating a unique community-based experience attractive to tourists.

There is a long-held assumption that Outdoor Adventure Education (OAE) can develop character. However, little research has explored this belief. While many practitioners, and some scholars, remain committed to character development through OAE, the literature also reveals a growing body of discomfort and suspicion surrounding this assumption. This dissent centres on the vague nature of the term “character,” and the moral philosophical complexities surrounding the concept of character itself. Until “character” is more clearly explicated, any resolution to the current confusion is unlikely. This thesis employs Aristotle’s virtue theory, as espoused in his Nicomachean Ethics, to articulate an understanding of character. Although several scholars have used virtue ethics, commonly referred to as character ethics, to support their claims of character development through OAE, these treatments have been preliminary, warranting this more detailed account. When viewed from this virtue ethical perspective, the question, “Can character be developed through OAE?,” becomes problematic. For Aristotle cautions that different subjects of inquiry yield differing levels of accuracy, and with regard to ethical investigations, such as those into character, one must be content to “indicate the truth roughly and in outline” (I 3§4). Further complicating the matter, Aristotle asserts that virtue, a disposition, and the building block of character is gradually and arduously inculcated over long periods of time (I 7§16). While virtue theory implies that radical character transformation is, in any context, unlikely over brief stints of time, this does not mean that OAE programmes are of little moral worth. To the contrary, a detailed examination into a virtue ethical understanding of character suggests that certain elements of OAE programmes may xii have strong moral relevance. This relevance is found in Aristotle’s three conditions that cultivate the development of virtue, conditions readily found within many OAE courses: moral reflection; moral practice; and sharing in the moral lives of others. Drawing on my own interest and experience within OAE, an expedition seemed an ideal setting to explore the presence and content of Aristotle’s three conditions. In hope of discovering this moral narrative, a qualitative case study was conducted on a two-week wilderness expedition in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. The expedition was a first-year transition experience for students attending a Christian liberal college in the United States. Utilising interviews as a primary method, and observations and texts as secondary methods, the research explored the participants’ expedition experience from a virtue ethical perspective. A thematic analysis revealed that participants reported reflecting on their moral lives in both formal (e.g. group reviews, solo, journals) and informal (e.g. while hiking and performing camp chores) settings. Similarly, whether through the mental and physical endurance required in off-trail navigation, or the care expressed through the acts of service and gracious tolerance necessitated by the social demands of expeditionary life, the participants viewed their wilderness travel as a constant opportunity for moral practice. Lastly, the participants identified the community formed on their expedition to be integral to their increased moral self-perception. Although a virtue ethical perspective precludes claiming anything definitive regarding the participants’ character development, at the least, the expedition can be said to have contributed to their moral journey in ways that are directly relevant to their character.

This thesis traces the development of outdoor education in New Zealand schools. Part one deals with precursors to outdoor education, from the late nineteenth century to 1938, and in part two school camping experiments and the expansion of outdoor education are examined. Outdoor education was stimulated by subject specialists working for education boards and the Department of Education, and the end of the period studied coincides with the disestablishment of these administrative bodies in 1989. Where possible, comparison with overseas developments is made. Outdoor education was adopted and expanded in New Zealand because political, economic and ideological circumstances favoured it. Progressive-liberal influences on education fostered acceptance of physical, recreational and practical activities and emphasis on the interests and needs of individual pupils. Social and economic policies of the later 1930s to the 1960s established a climate in which innovations that broadened the school curriculum were acceptable. From the late 1960s the struggle to resource outdoor education was exacerbated by its rapid rate of growth. The government funding attained was never sufficient and community support remained vital. Safety concerns from the 1960s to the end of the period precipitated efforts to establish teacher training and by the 1980s there was a growing professionalism among outdoor educators. Links between outdoor education and the school curriculum at both primary and secondary levels were maintained by changes in terminology but its central concerns with social and moral education, environmental studies, physical activity and communal living in natural environments remained. Unlike most other curriculum innovations of its time, outdoor education was initially viewed as a teaching method and it did not attain formal subject status until the 1980s.

This study sought to describe the emergent interaction system of letterboxing in North America. Letterboxing is a hobby that can trace its roots to treasure hunting and orienteering. A letterbox is a container holding a logbook and carved rubber stamp found by following clues. Participants use the stamp to make an imprint in their personal journal, and in turn, they record their personal stamp and a message in the letterbox's logbook. Letterboxing has been growing rapidly in North America since its start in 1998; currently 21,498 letterbox clues are listed on just one of the hobby's largest websites. I recruited 355 participants for this study through invitations on websites used by letterboxers. I conducted the research using a combination of descriptive qualitative methods and qualitative analysis of data from three open-ended questions gathered on an online survey instrument. I designed survey items to gather data that described the participants and their behaviors including demographics, participation activities, and communication activities. I then analyzed these data using frequencies, percentages, and cross tabulations. Participants in the study were predominantly white, female, under the age of 50 and educated. I used content analysis of survey data obtained through open-ended questions to identify impetus, motivation, and emergent behaviors. The impetus for participation varies from hearing about it from a friend or relative to publications and broadcasts. Others stumbled across letterboxing via Internet searches or by finding a letterbox in the woods unintentionally. The "thrill of the hunt," hiking, and a love of the outdoors are primary motivations for participation. Made possible by the interconnectivity of the Internet, an informal collective has emerged that embraces individual variants and claims it for its own in an online learning community. Community activities such as gatherings, web rings, talk lists, discussion boards, and postal letterboxing bring participants together, increase engagement, and build community around similar interests. Collaborative innovations, or emergent interactions of participants, create new forms of letterboxing and lead to experimentation, probing, learning, and enhancement of individual experience. A model of emergent interaction is presented in the conclusion section. / Department of Educational Studies

Abstract Background The decrease in children’s outdoor activity and its associated health impacts form the basis for health promotion initiatives to encourage children's outdoor activity. As gatekeepers to their children’s participation in registered programs, parents must be convinced that the benefits of enrollment in such programs outweigh the costs. A guiding framework is thus needed to help recreation providers identify critical program components and effective messages to attract parents. Purpose The main purpose of this study was to gain insight into parental perceptions of barriers and facilitators to enrolling their children in an outdoor activity program in order to inform the development of an action planning framework for recreation providers. A secondary purpose was to apply the framework to an existing summer activity program implemented by the City of Kingston department of recreation. Methods This qualitative study was guided by Social Marketing principles (i.e., the “4 P’s”: Product, Price, Promotion, Place). Key informants, 18 parents of children 4 to12 years old from 16 different neighbourhoods located in a mid-size Canadian city, participated in 4 focus groups and 7 interviews. Sessions were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data analysis involved both deductive and inductive content analysis. Results Parental intentions to enrol their children in an outdoor activity program were shown to be influenced by barriers and facilitators, related to Product and Price, contained within the following themes, ranked from most to least influential: program safety, program social environment, program structure, child preferences, cost and convenience, skills development, variety of activities, community, the local level, and, staff engagement. The influence of these themes on parental intentions seems to be moderated by the theme of Information transfer, related to Promotion. Place was not found to influence intentions. For each theme, a continuum emerged, encompassing both positive and negative influences (e.g. high program safety to lack of program safety) upon parents’ intentions to enrol their children in an outdoor activity program. Conclusions The Social Marketing Framework is useful to inform the development of an action planning framework for recreation providers seeking to enhance enrollment in their outdoor activity programs. / Thesis (Master, Kinesiology & Health Studies) -- Queen's University, 2014-05-30 10:22:07.963

While outdoor recreation resources may be developed as infrastructure to benefit the tourist economy, through community-based planning efforts such developments can achieve a wider range of community benefits. This research project examines the role of outdoor recreation development in urban and regional planning strategies enabling a deeper understanding about how these amenities can enhance our communities and make them more resilient, diverse, and healthy. Stakeholder interviews and user surveys focusing on the implications of the ongoing development of the City of Revelstoke BC bicycle network were conducted to further inform this study. The Integral framework adopted in the analysis proved to be valuable for the inclusion of a broad range of perspectives. Nine recommendations are identified with relevance for the planning profession, suggesting that outdoor recreation can play a significant role in community building, enhancing social equity, and providing a means of urban enhancement. The research findings indicate that collaborative partnerships are vital to the planning process towards creating valued outdoor recreation amenities that align with local community perceptions, while creating a unique community-based experience attractive to tourists.

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