Conceptualizing Skill Within a Participatory Ecological Approach to Outdoor Adventure

Abstract

To answer calls for an ecological approach to outdoor adventure that can respond to the crisis of sustainability, this paper suggests greater theoretical and empirical attention to skill and skill development as shaping participant interactions with and experiences of environments, landscapes, places, and inhabitants. The paper reviews calls for ecological approaches as well as phenomenological analyses of outdoor adventure. The paper then outlines a heuristic perspective that positions humanity as belonging within environments and highlights the performative and movement orientation of outdoor adventure. Ingold’s work is outlined as an informative ecological ontology and, integrating it with the literature reviewed, alternative conceptualizations of skill, activity, and outdoor adventure are provided. These understandings enable a first step in formulating and researching a participatory ecological approach to outdoor adventure education, recreation, and tourism.

Signature pedagogies in outdoor education

“…This use of adventure activities, which are not necessarily the best match for local environmental conditions or the full cohort of students could well be characterized as a form of pedagogical inertia, which is resistant to change. However, other authors (P. Martin, 2004;Mullins, 2014aMullins, , 2014bThomas, 2005) have argued that skills and adventure can play a useful role in OE programs and the preparation of OE teachers, but they need to be used carefully and thoughtfully, so as not to undermine other desired learning outcomes like building a sense-of-place or developing environmental awareness and action. Dewey proposed a similar notion of 'agreeableness', which Simpson (2003) interprets as aligning the curriculum with the students' readiness to learn.…”

The Evolution of Experiential Learning Theory: Tracing Lines of Research in the JEE

“…Pedagogically, revisiting commitments to action–reflection cycles frees both educators and learners from formulaic scripts and can help to recognize the diversity inherent in learning environments and personal experiences. For instance, valuing experiences as embodied and situated in particular places (e.g., Mullins, 2014), rather than simply as fodder for abstract reflection aimed at self-understanding, may help to connect experiential education—as with the initial Lewinian trainings—with democratic rationales that more clearly link individual goals and social purposes. It is unclear to us whether “experiential learning” as a general perspective can usefully contribute to this effort given its ongoing association with ideas from humanistic psychology which elsewhere have been abandoned.…”

The Impact of NOLS Rocky Mountain on the Development of a Sense of Place

“…The ways sense of place is nurtured within an educational context such as NOLS should also take into consideration the ways travel, skill, and activities shape attention to the environment (Beringer, 2004). Indeed, it is reasonable to surmise that the educational principles, practices, and travel that make up the NOLS Rocky Mountain programs also shape and help to produce a certain type of wilderness person-place relationship experienced by participants (Mullins, 2014(Mullins, , 2018. Overall, sense of place is framed in this study as a positioned and nuanced concept shaped by experience and instruction (Kudryavtsev et al, 2012;Mullins, 2009).…”