Outdoor Education Commons^™

Healing A Generation; Implementation Of Higher Education Curricula For Venezuelan Journalism Students Living Under Structural Violence To Promote A Transition Into Democracy, José Luis Jiménez-Figarotti Prof.

The SUNY Journal of the Scholarship of Engagement: JoSE

Venezuela's sociopolitical landscape has deteriorated significantly over the past decade, culminating in a profound humanitarian crisis. This ethnography, conducted from 2015 to the present, explores the experiences of a study group comprising 2000 Venezuelan communication college students, aged 17 to 25, who navigate structural violence while striving for quality higher education. The research employed a multifaceted approach, encompassing interviews, focus groups, and observations. Additionally, this qualitative study examines the outcomes of implementing an interdisciplinary journalism curriculum grounded in human rights and media activism, complemented by online sessions and an environmental education component. This educational project aims to foster critical thinking …

Coalescence: A Carnivore Coexistence Curriculum That Braids Indigenous & Western Ecological Knowledge Into A Relevant And Experiential Learning Opportunity For Youth, Stephanie Anne Barron

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

As grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horriblis) begin to reoccupy more of their historic range, and as humans and large carnivore populations continue to increase, incidences of human carnivore conflict are on the rise. A decolonial curriculum designed in collaboration with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribe’s wildlife biologists stands to increase awareness of Indigenous ecological knowledge and teach youth about the importance of coexistence with carnivores. Additionally, this project could greatly influence youth perceptions of grizzly bears and other large carnivores. This research project examines the development and implementation of a carnivore coexistence curriculum for youth that is guided by …

Investigating Relationships Between Muslim High School Students’ School Belonging And Career Decision-Making, Nour Alhiyari

Dissertations

Muslim Americans have been subjected to systemic oppression and unjust experiences, such as discrimination, racism, hate crimes, and stereotypes, for generations in the United States. Although ample research has investigated relationships between systemic oppression in society and its impacts on marginalized students in public school environments, little research has directly investigated Muslim students' school experiences. Additionally, studies and scholarship have explored the long-term impacts of systemic oppression on marginalized groups to develop a comprehensive understanding of minority groups’ experiences in the United States. This study investigated Muslim students’ experiences in public high schools regarding their sense of belonging and other …

Book Review It Takes An Ecosystem: Understanding The People, Places, And Possibilities Of Learning And Development Across Settings, Denise Montgomery

Journal of Youth Development

It Takes an Ecosystem: Understanding the People, Places, and Possibilities of Learning and Development Across Settings, edited by Thomas Akiva and Kimberly H. Robinson, is a call to take a holistic and dynamic ecosystem approach to thinking about, designing, developing, and investing in the allied youth fields to more equitably and effectively support young people’s learning and development. Published in 2022, the volume outlines a vision for out-of-school time programs and systems, schools, community-based organizations, and the public sector to move beyond focusing separately on individual systems to a learning and development ecosystem approach that more accurately and inclusively reflects …

Supporting Students In Learning English Outside The Classroom, Mubariz Zirman

Journal of Research Initiatives

Both inside and outside the classroom are essential in learning a language. However, the importance of these two environments may change from here to there. For instance, in Afghanistan, English is a foreign language, and it is mainly learned inside the classroom. Therefore, the classroom is considered an essential place for learning. This paper aims to identify ways of supporting students in learning a language outside the classroom. Specifically, it will discuss ways of learning English outside the classroom, such as the flipped classroom approach, involving students in out-of-classroom learning, online learning, project-based learning, interacting with native speakers, surfing social …

Exploration Of The Lived Experiences Of Native American Science Teachers Of The Great Plains: A Narrative Inquiry, Uma Ganesan

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The complicated history of the education of Native American children through U.S. government-sponsored practices has led to the elimination of the Native children’s sense of Indian identity, culture, and language (Noel, 2002). In addition, increased emphasis on standardization and high-stakes accountability under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 has resulted in less culturally responsive educational efforts and more Indigenous students left behind in school systems (Castagno & Brayboy, 2008). This has led to Indigenous students being underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields where they account for only 3% of STEM workers (Fry, Kennedy, & Funk, …

Science, Technology, Engineering, And Mathematics (Stem) Project-Based Learning (Pbl) Education: A New Mexico Case Study For Equity And Inclusion, Kimberly A. Scheerer

Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy ETDs

This research addresses how student participation in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) project-based learning (PBL) education activities encourages underrepresented minority student achievement in STEM career field trajectories. Seven New Mexico high school counselors and 12 STEM organization personnel were interviewed during this study. Their responses represent the nuanced professional voices where New Mexico public education intersects with STEM student interest and cultural influence.

For students, STEM PBL can foster deep integration across educational disciplines and enhance STEM career trajectory interest and readiness. STEM education converged with PBL methodologies has the ability to leverage community support while broadening student networks. …

Building On Best Practices And Organizational Expertise: Informing Curriculum Design For Refugee And Asylum-Seeking Youth At Philadelphia Outward Bound School, Emily Della Fera

Capstone Collection

Refugee and asylum-seeking youth experience a variety of barriers within education, social adjustment and inclusion, and mental and physical health when resettling to a new country. These barriers which can be mitigated with outdoor education programs that supplement existing resettlement programs. Outdoor education has proven positive outcomes in youth’s self-perception and confidence, school performance, community and relationship building, and physical and mental health. This course-linked capstone designs curriculum for an outdoor education program that will be proposed to the Philadelphia Outward Bound School. Designed specifically for refugee and asylum-seeking youth, the curriculum fosters environments for participants to build relationships, gain …

Wellness Through Nature, Yulissa Ochoa

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The Ventana Wildlife Society's mission statement is to conserve native wildlife through science, education, and collaboration. VWS addresses the lettuce curtain and lack of access to green spaces with “Salud y Naturaleza ''. The Lettuce Curtain refers to the disconnect between the Salinas Valley and the coast. This Nature Prescription program removes the barriers of transportation, cost, and language, giving access to nature to families in East Salinas by organizing free family trips to the coast and a weekly nature class. With easy access to nature, people will be encouraged to spend time in the outdoors to better their mental …

Queering Beyond Pronouns: The Necessity Of Indigenizing Learning Communities, Gillian Imazumi-Hegarty

Master's Projects and Capstones

Learners who do not see themselves reflected in schooling face mental health, social and academic hardships. While centring marginalized identities and pursuing efforts to queer learning spaces is vital, it cannot end with attention to gender and sexuality. In order to best serve learners and community members, learning environments must commit to indigenizing as well. This paper culminates in a handbook which seeks to provide best practices for engaging with learners and holding space, as well as includes a sample curriculum and resources for further development. This handbook is focused for educators on unceded ancestral Ohlone Lands, and centres the …

Winter Travel For Cold Weather Novices; Methods For Making Challenging Outdoor Experiences More Inclusive, Anders Fristedt

Capstone Collection

Cold Weather for Winter Novices is a weeklong experiential education trip developed for students, between the ages of 17 and 21, from the Armand Hammer United World College of the American West (UWC-USA), an international boarding school in Montezuma, New Mexico. This trip is an opportunity to examine multicultural perspectives of adventure and wilderness. Specifically, the research question focuses on if the concepts of adventure and wilderness present inherent hurdles for diverse populations.

This program was developed trough a detailed literature review and needs assessment that involved both outdoor education professionals and potential students. The literature review looked at the …

Wai Puna: An Indigenous Model Of Māori Water Safety And Health In Aotearoa, New Zealand, Chanel Phillips Ph.D.

International Journal of Aquatic Research and Education

Māori (the indigenous peoples of Aotearoa, New Zealand) are intimately connected to wai (i.e., water) yet are overrepresented in New Zealand’s drowning statistics each year. On average Māori account for 20-24% of all preventable and non-preventable drowning fatalities, despite comprising only 15 percent of New Zealand’s population. Drowning remains a significant issue posing a threat to whānau (i.e., families) through premature death being imminent and whakapapa (i.e., genealogy) being interrupted. There is limited research that has examined Māori and indigenous understandings of water safety within the literature and limited studies that have investigated the issue of Māori drowning from a …

Indigenous Wisdom, Storytelling, And Language Renewal Ꭰꮒᏸꭺꭹ, Ꭰꮒᏼꮻꮿ Ꭰꭷꮩꭵꭿꮝꮧ Ꭴꮒꭽ, Ꭰꮴꭿꮠꮧᏹ Ꭶꮼꮒꭿꮝꮧ, Arlo Starr

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

Abstract ᎧᏃᎮᏍᎩ

Language, cultural immersion, and intergenerational land-based education have shown the potential to vastly improve dire health issues that Indigenous people face. What is the most effective way to produce a large number of second language learners who speak at a basic level in order to improve Indigenous health?

Relationship is a vital part of Indigenous cosmology. Rather than promoting the consumption of words as things, acquisition will be more readily integrated into relationship-based thought when also interacting with them in context through story, and cultural activities that are fun, understandable, and engage community. Many successful language immersion models …

Growing The Youth Of Tomorrow: Applying Leadership Skills In A Hands-On Effort For Food Security, Chasity D. Tompkins

National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference

The objective of the poster presentation is to highlight the development of student leadership and goal setting skills through 4-H. The collaborative effort with local school systems and the County Extension Offices provides a strong foundation to pursue student growth outside of the classroom. This presentation benefits school officials and community partners.

A Model For Cultivating Global Engagement Beyond Academic Tourism, Victor D. Carmona, Tizziana Carmona

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

The message to environmental scholars in Pope Francis’ Encyclical “Laudato Si” is clear: contributions from Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) must serve to inform both local and international conversations as well as connect learning communities in developed and developing nations. In the hope of fostering international opportunities that challenge U.S. students to link their academic degrees with social justice elements that calibrate them to the historical reality the overwhelming majority of the world experiences, we outline a teacher-scholar model that serves as a tool for the advancement of social and environmental justice issues in developing countries.

La Sección De Preescolar Del Colegio Espíritu Santo En Villavicencio Un Lugar Para Desarrollar La Conciencia Global De Una Manera Divertida., Ximena Gafaro Mrs, Diana Carolina Zapata Miss, Adriana Marcela Pardo Mrs

ICOT 18 - International Conference on Thinking - Cultivating Mindsets for Global Citizens

LA PINEJA Reggiana es la sección de preescolar del Colegio Espíritu Santo; una institución en Villavicencio Meta, Colombia con 38 años de fundada que atiende una población de 800 estudiantes desde preescolar a grado 11. Está ubicada en una granja en un entorno natural exuberante de 72.000 yardas cuadradas, a 15 minutos de la ciudad. Desde 2011, ha desarrollado un proyecto pedagógico inspirado en la Propuesta Pedagógica de Reggio Emilia , utilizando el Pensamiento Visible para promover las habilidades de pensamiento crítico y creativo. Este Jardín Infantil está ofreciendo un entorno natural para la indagación que promueve proyectos que desarrollan …

An Intensive Esl Camp Curriculum And Excursion Activities For International High School Graduated / College Students, Ying Chen

Master's Projects and Capstones

There are many factors for students’ poor command of English among international students in the native language institutions. One of the factors is the students’ negative attitude and low motivation in English learning. Another aspect to lower students’ English learning motivation is the inappropriate use of the learning materials. Moreover, learners still lack a chance to immerse in the real language environment and the authentic cultural background to improve their comprehensively intercultural and communicative competence. For the sake that the second language instruction provided in regular schools is limited in time, many students even do not have enough time to …

Cultivating A Culture Of Creativity – One Spam Carving At A Time!, Kasey L. Bozeman

National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference

Educational researchers find that creativity and imagination are essential for learning, especially for difficult to reach students. How can you have a creativity-building activity that also develops critical social, emotional, and life skills for youth-at-risk populations? Educators from all areas can learn how to implement a series of creative challenges, such as mind puzzles, mystery games, and even Spam—yes, the canned meat—carving!

Empowering Refugees Through Self-Education, Ayanna Osborne

Master's Projects and Capstones

This project focuses on how to create easier access to education in refugee camps. This is discussed through the ideas of self-directed learning and cooperative learning. As well, the current need for education is explored. Several case studies are provided demonstrating that people without a formal education have successfully been able to seek information and teach themselves. As well, studies are discussed in which individuals have been shown to efficiently seek information and teach one another.

My website provided is still under construction as of 01/2018. It will be completed by the end of the year. Anyone is welcome to …

Diné Bina'nitin Dóó O'Hoo'aah/Education For Us, By Us: A Collective Journey In Diné Education Liberation, Lyla June Johnston

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

This study is an educational memoir of my experience working for education liberation with hundreds of Diné (Navajo) people written in the style of auto-ethnography. We are indigenous to what is now known as the southwestern United States and organize in the wake of attempted genocide and destructive assimilation policies. Our collective set out to answer the following question: If we could teach and learn anything we wanted, in any way we wanted, what would we do? Based on our ancestral Nitsáhakees-Nahat’á-Iiná-Sii Hasin strategic framework, this Diné collective organized a summer school that reflected their hearts’ true pedagogical desires. What …

Using Culturally Relevant Experiential Education To Enhance Urban Children’S Knowledge And Engagement In Science, Cara Michele Djonko-Moore, Jacqueline Leonard, Quintaniay Holifield, Elsa Bailey, Sultan Almughyirah

Child and Family Studies Publications and Other Works

Background: Children living in urban areas often have limited opportunities to experience informal science environments. As a result, some do not have a deep understanding of the environment, natural resources, ecosystems, and the ways human activities affect nature. Purpose: This article examines how experiential science education supported urban children’s science knowledge and engagement through cultural relevance and eco-justice during a 1-week summer camp. Methodology/Approach: Third- through sixth-grade children from African American and Latinx urban communities in Colorado participated in a weeklong program using experiential learning opportunities including environmental and climate change lessons, activities at a local community-based site, and field …

A Logistic Regression Analysis Of Student Experience Factors For The Enhancement Of Developmental Post-Secondary Retention Initiatives, Michael Shenkle

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

In response to stagnant undergraduate completion rates and growing demands for post-secondary accountability, institutions are actively pursuing effective, broadly applicable methods for promoting student success. One notable scarcity in existing research is found in the tailoring of broad academic interventions to better meet the specific needs of students from known risk populations. The purpose of this correlational study was to investigate possible predictive relationships among three specific pre-matriculation characteristics (gender, ethnicity and secondary school type) and subsequent academic year retention for residential undergraduate students that completed a developmental education course at a private, liberal arts university. A logistic regression was …

It's All Happening At The Zoo: Children's Environmental Learning After School, Jason A. Douglas, Cindi Katz

Publications and Research

Pairing dynamic out-of-school-time (OST) programs with zoos can encourage young people's relationships with and sense of responsibility for animals and the environment. The project presented in this article, Animal Rescuers, gave the authors the opportunity to examine how such a pairing can work. OST programs enable learning in settings that are generally unavailable during school time (Honig & McDonald, 2005). They provide space for collaboration among students, teachers, and others such as program visitors or outside educators. Taking advantage of the flexibility, location, and educational playfulness of an OST setting, the authors worked intensively with a small number of 10-12-year-old …