The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically impacted opportunities for internships in parks, recreation, tourism, and sports. The government mandated numerous agencies to close. Many agencies that remained open reduced staff, froze budgets, shifted programs online, and discontinued internships. The senior internship for Parks, Recreation, and Tourism…

Area should be experienced, not simply calculated. This task invites students to physically experience areas and the spatial relationships between them, as well as their own community.

The United States has a visually stunning history of documenting its natural lands. In the late 1800s, Hudson River School painters captured national parks in the west (National Park Service, 2017). Ansel Adams is famously known for his rich black-and-white photographs of Yosemite and other national parks from the 1920s. In the 1930s, the Works…

Research supports the benefits of exposing children to nature, yet classroom teachers indicate they do not possess the time, monetary resources, or space to construct an ideal outdoor space. An underutilized resource is the non-traditional educator who has: knowledge about the outdoors; space, especially in state parks; and time since the primary…

I have been teaching an information technology course in recreation, parks & tourism partially online (hybrid format) for nearly a decade; however, I never taught it fully online until the shift to emergency remote instruction during the pandemic. What I found was that some of my previous reasons for not wanting to teach fully online were…

In 2020, just as COVID-19 reached Australian shores, a group of enthusiastic teachers had been anticipating their imminent Bush Blitz TeachLive expedition to Rungulla National Park to take part in Australia's largest biodiversity survey. It took two years for their trip to eventuate, but it was worth the wait. Three candidates from the deferred…

It is critical to develop students' science communication skills as they progress through their education. One way this goal can be accomplished is by integrating Flip into educational programs. Through Flip educators create prompts that students respond to in video form, which leads to deeper discussion on various topics. This brief will share an…

Large drop towers let you experience a couple of seconds of nearly free fall before stopping gracefully in magnetic brakes or bouncing a number of times on compressed air, as in the Turbo Drop tower considered in this work, where many complementary representations are used. An accelerometer taken along on the ride captured the forces experienced…

Ranger programs across North Australia are a success story, providing important environmental, social and cultural services that help people get back out on their Country to do vital work, such as carbon abatement fire programs, weed and feral animal management, cultural site maintenance, and Learning on Country programs for youth. Many rangers…

This chapter presents an overview of six additional disciplines. Descriptions and resources for psychology, arts and music, women's studies, religious studies, parks and recreation, and interdisciplinary studies are included.

Many professors and lecturers strive to structure educational experiences that facilitate engaged learning in university classrooms. While some lectures may fail to achieve this goal due to monotone, routine speeches or uninteresting PowerPoint presentations, educational live action role-playing (edu-larp) is a strategy to facilitate interactive…

In this article, the author considers ecosystems in a much more holistic way and encourages children to consider how all the interactions within that ecosystem affect the balance of it. There is hardly an ecosystem on Earth that has not been somehow affected by human interaction. Humans are the ultimate ecosystem engineers, and it is important to…

Aldo Leopold is widely regarded as one of the founders of the modern field of ecology. He was also a skilled woodsman, hunter, and a proponent of personal development through time in the outdoors. In this essay, we focus on how Leopold viewed certain benefits concomitant with immersive outdoor experiences. Guided by his 1943 essay, "The…

The United States' collective memory focuses on the nation's story as one of progress and freedom, yet the experiences of many citizens, particularly citizens of color, are in contradiction to this collective memory. Today, there is a small yet growing collection of counter-monument installations around the country that tell a counter-story to…

Early literacy is a key predictor of grade-level reading and school success. Too often, however, young children do not have equitable access to literacy-rich environments that foster the skills needed to attain reading proficiency by the end of third grade. While high-quality preschool and early elementary programs are necessary early literacy…