Shows how darkness and night provide a potentially excellent arena for experiential learning opportunities. Recommends learning must be gradual, beginning with appreciation and allaying fear of the dark. Suggests sensory activities, hikes, games, aquatic activities, ecological simulations, historical presentations, and writing or reciting poetry.…

Experiential education can provide a framework for transmitting and inculcating the values and philosophy of deep ecology. The ideal outdoor experiential program would include the deep-ecology principles of (1) knowledge and sense of place; (2) wholeness of self; (3) identification with nature; (4) integrity of program practices with espoused…

The Canadian Canoe Museum evokes the essence of canoe with outdoor sound effects and galleries that trace the history of canoes, honor Native arts and crafts, and present current recreational uses of canoes. Experiential educational programs include core programs keyed to curriculum expectations and related optional experiences including basketry,…

Explores reasons behind the wrongful adoption of Native American ceremonies by Euro-Americans. Focuses on the need for ceremony, its relevance to environmental education, and the fact that some immigrant cultural traditions neither fit this new land nor value the earth. Suggests how non-Natives can express their connection to the land by creating…

For education to make a lasting difference in people's lives, it must touch all dimensions of being human in ways that are integrated or holistic. Content and instructional methods, such as those of Kurt Hahn and Charity James, that are based on images of the intact human being see things whole from the beginning. But our school experience and the…

Outdoor education is the only means by which people can recover their identity as a part of wildlife in harmony with earthly wisdom. Outdoor education programs that aim to bring alienated youth in touch with their own wild natures have four major features: (1) earthlinks (connecting daily life to surroundings); (2) stories (myth and science); (3)…

A professor of outdoor and experiential education reflects on the development of group relations and on lessons in outdoor ethics learned during a canoe trip in the Canadian Arctic. Written to celebrate a transforming experience, this paper illustrates the experiential learning and individual development that can result from intensive outdoor…

A workshop and demonstration in ritual and ceremonies for classroom teachers with an elementary interest in the subject described the value and application of rituals in the classroom environment. Participants, who were greeted ceremoniously, learned that rituals can be incorporated into the classroom to mark special events, to enhance changes in…

Describes Queen's University of Kingston cooperative/internship approach to educating teachers for a variety of experiential settings. Outlines program offerings which include special studies in group process, curriculum design, wilderness crisis management, mobile comparative studies of experientially based programs, and a final internship. (NEC)

This chapter explores the possibilities of an experiential curriculum, and summarizes common elements and dilemmas of practice. The nature of experiential education is not so much a matter of definition as of seeing what teachers and students actually do. Mechanical models of experiential education are useful because they are simple and can serve…

Non-Natives (or immigrants) wrongly adopt aspects of Native ceremonies out of ignorance and misunderstanding, a tendency to romanticize Native culture, and a desire to connect with the land. Non-Native outdoor educators should examine their own cultural traditions, develop new ceremonies, and learn from Native elders those Native cultural aspects…

This study explores how high school students learn from their experiences in an extracurricular adventure program and illustrates how students' narrative inquiries relate to experiential learning. Twelve canoe trips were studied by participant observation methods. Data were collected from recorded interviews with students and staff, field notes,…

This paper describes the role of outdoor education in an integrated semester at an Ontario, Canada high school. Thirteen students worked with one teacher for an entire semester and earned credits in environmental science, English, physical education, and life skills. Students were interviewed at the beginning, midpoint, and end of the semester. By…

During the 20th century, the involvement of communities in education has deteriorated, and the school and the community have evolved into separate worlds. This chapter describes ways in which a typical high school has increased its interactions with its own community. Those interactions have two dimensions: to bring the community into the school…

Essential features of an outdoor integrated curriculum include experiential learning, whole process, authenticity, challenge, responsibility, and connection with the community. Additional factors that result only from outdoor learning include inescapable consequences, personal growth, and sense of wonder. Problems of curriculum integration include…