Bringing Students to Environmental Consciousness Through Engaging Outdoor Experiences

• In Event: Roundtable Session 12
  In Roundtable Session: Mindfully Embodied Connections in Environmental Education Work

Abstract

This paper supports the premises that environmental education should be about raising environmental consciousness; and that this requires providing people with engaging, holistic and transformative experiences. We present data from a study of educators working together at an outdoor education centre in urban Canada whose practice of environmental education is grounded in holism, theories of care, experiential education and transformative learning. We describe salient examples of their pedagogical practice, that is, immersive outdoor experiences that they engage students in and illuminate their motivations for doing so. The paper provides insight into how immersive experiences that engage the senses, heart and mind in holistic and transformative ways may occur and why these may be necessary for raising environmental consciousness.

Authors

• Joanne Nazir, University of Toronto - OISE

• Erminia G. Pedretti, OISE/University of Toronto