Outdoor Education Commons^™

The Environmental Rhetoric Of Song, Charles Yaple

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

Pete Seeger was, indeed, a master of environmental lyric and song. His folk style musical rhetoric continues to attract the listening of thousands of children and adults each year. Songs can capture the moment and also launch a movement. What follows are 10 of our favorite tunes carrying environmental/green messages. Some are old, some are new; perhaps you have others to share with Taproot readers. Our favorite, considering the Coalition for Education in the Outdoors’ mission, is a new one by none other than Bruce Matthews, first director of the Coalition. It began as a poem many years ago and …

From The Editor, Charles Yaple

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

The need for environmental patriotism, the theme of this issue of Taproot, is suggested by a 2006 college student in his final quarter of college. Asked by professor Carmen Werder (See Resources on page 48) to describe himself via metaphor, the student finally settled on being like a stream. A stream, he said, “is always moving forward, forever changing…eventually becomes pure… We are all pieces of a larger system, and I appreciate my place in it. It’s the first time I’ve ever thought of myself as part of something bigger.” How is it, Werder asks, that research shows so many …

Local Environmental History And The Journey To Ecological Citizenship, Michael B. Smith

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

This article describes a process of hands-on learning that Professor Michael Smith uses to help college students develop a sense of place and understand the meaning of civic engagement. It also suggests ways of evaluating a teacher’s pedagogical effectiveness. The article first appeared in the book, Citizenship Across the Curriculum, which describes how similar approaches to civic education can also be used in political science, mathematics, the natural sciences, rhetoric and communication studies. Smith’s inclusion of student comments about their course experience is especially insightful for scholars wishing to know more about the learning process.

A Salute To Pete Seeger: Environmental Patriot Extraordinaire, Charles Yaple

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

A Salute to Pete Seeger is a tribute to an American folk music legend. Celebrated for his political activism and contributions to revive American folk music, Seeger was also an important environmental patriot. Tirelessly using his guitar and banjo he got a whole generation singing together and actively involved in cleaning up and protecting the natural world. The inscription on Pete’s banjo succinctly illustrates his personal philosophy and how he lived: “This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender.” His principled and modest lifestyle provides a worthy role model for teachers and parents who want their children to become …

Participant Profiles, Antecedent Predictors, And Developmental Outcomes, Jayson Seaman, Erin Hiley Sharp, Sean Mclaughlin, Corinna Tucker, Karen Vangundy, Cesar Rebellon

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

Adolescents spend 40% to 50% of their waking hours in discretionary activities, representing an important context for youth development (Verma & Larson, 2003). Structured and unstructured outdoor activities have been acknowledged as especially promising venues for positive youth development (PYD, Mainella, Agate & Clark, 2010; Sibthorp, 2010). In the youth development and activity literature, however, outdoor activities often are undifferentiated from other options, with researchers emphasizing more generic characteristics such as adult supervision, program structure, and skill-building opportunities (see Mahoney, Larson, & Eccles, 2005). Conversely, many outdoor education scholars highlight the distinctiveness of outdoor programs, yet research designs are frequently …

Constructing A Family Adventure Experience, Jillisa R. Overholt

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

While family leisure is a growing area of inquiry, focus on family outdoor recreation or family adventure experiences remains limited. Outdoor recreation and camping experiences, however, are particularly well suited to enhancing family bonding and cohesiveness (Hawkes, 1991). This has been suggested to be the case because of the unfamiliar environment, the social structure, and the types of interactions required to successfully negotiate the environment and task (Huff, Widmer, McCoy, & Hill, 2003). Much of the existing research in this area has focused on organized family camping experiences (Agate & Covey, 2007; Taylor, 2006) or short-term adventure experiences, usually one …

Book Reviews, Coalition For Education In The Outdoors

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

This section reviewed several books. These books included:

Outdoor Adventure and Social Theory-- edited by Elizabeth C. J. Pike and Simon Beames and reviewed by Jeff Rose

The Journey at Malloryville Bog-- written by Robert M. Beck and reviewed by Charles Yaple

In The News, Coalition For Education In The Outdoors

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

This section contains multiple brief news items related to conservation, environment, and outdoor education.

Resources, Coalition For Education In The Outdoors

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

This section lists teaching resources of all types for those who work in outdoor education at the time of publication. Some highlighted items include:

Eco-Warriors: Updated Edition

Rise of the Eco-Warriors: Film Review

Taproot In & Outside The Classroom, Coalition For Education In The Outdoors

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

This section provides activities and strategies to include Taproot into classroom lesson plans.

Conference Calendar, Coalition For Education In The Outdoors

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

This section lists conferences in the field of outdoor education including the "North American Association for Environmental Education" and "4th IEA Clean Coal Centre Workshop on Cofiring Biomass with Coal."

From The Editor, Charles Yaple

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

Following the tradition of making New Year’s resolutions, this issue of Taproot arrives with the Coalition’s renewed dedication to help further the goals of outdoor education. A new partnership with Sagamore Journals and Applied Health Sciences will serve as a vehicle to enable realization of that commitment by making our publications more widely available. We believe the time is right for a resurgence of outdoor education to take on its rightful and sorely needed role in the advancement of sustainability, including assisting in redefining the concept of sustainability itself. The lack of attachment and allegiance to place, ecological consciousness, and …

Outdoor Educator’S Challenge, Emanuele Corso

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

At a time when the world is crying out for relief from its social and environmental crisis, our response must come in the form of radical departures from “business as usual” in the schools. Misplaced intelligence and well-intentioned ignorance have made American schools like factories.1 With production came dehumanization and its consequences: insensitivity to self, others, and nature. The production view of education persists because of its appeal to those who fear human nature and who have deep needs for social control as well as for proof of status. At this moment, the “in” euphemism for production is “accountability.” Industrial …

Exploring Profound Place Relationships, Ryan Howard And Tim O’Connell

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

How does place research currently capture the importance of Yosemite within John Muir’s life and written work or the value that the Boundary Waters Canoe Area had within Sigrud Olsen’s writings? Profound relationships with place guide the lives of many outdoor recreationists, both historically and presently. Within the academic literature, the intensity of a personal connection to place has been addressed through sense of place (Farnum, Hall, & Kruger, 2005), and more specifically, empirical investigations into the construct of place attachment (Williams, Patterson, Roggenbuck, & Watson, 1992; Williams & Vaske, 2003). This study proposes an extension to look beyond the …

Measuring Youth Development Outcomes, Shaina Stewart And Kendra Liddicoat

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

Within the past 40 years, the field of youth development has undergone several major paradigm shifts in an effort to better understand—and provide—what young people need to become happy, healthy, and successful adults (Pittman, Irby, Tolman, Yohalem, & Ferber, 2003). Early strategies that simply focused on minimizing the problematic behaviors that got youth into trouble evolved into later strategies that focused instead on developing the beneficial behaviors that helped youth succeed. Today, the theory of positive youth development broadly represents a social science framework that identifies the external supports, structures, and opportunities that young people need to become successful, contributing …

Contents, Coalition For Education In The Outdoors

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

The Coalition for Education in the Outdoors is a non-profit network of outdoor and environmental education centers, nature centers, conservation and recreation organizations, outdoor education and experiential education associations, institutions of higher learning, public and private schools, fish and wildlife agencies, and businesses that share a mission to support and further outdoor education and its goals.

Moderators Of Change In Biophilia, Nathan W. Meltzer; Denise Mitten; W. Brad Faircloth; Andrew J. Bobilya

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

Researchers have acknowledged the natural world as a powerful component of Wilderness Experience Programs (WEP), often serving as both a teacher and classroom (Friese, Hendee, & Kinziger, 1998; Herdman, 1994; Mitten, 2009). Yet, the human-nature relationship has not always been emphasized within adventure education (AE), and many programs (e.g., Outward Bound; OB) have focused primarily on interpersonal relationships (Hayllar, 1990; Miles, 1995; Priest, 1986). Some have argued for greater acknowledgment of the human- nature relationship in a definition of AE (Beringer, 2004; Henderson, 1999). Biophilia provides a theoretical framework for describing how people relate to the natural world, serving as …

Stories To Live By, Martin Ogle

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

Oh, for a story to explain the times we live in and guide us down saner paths! In the midst of ever-heightened awareness and concern about the unsustainable course of human society, we seem to be heading, with increasingly deadly speed, down an environmentally and societally destructive track. Laudable actions to change direction, or at least slow down, often seem to have the opposite effect. In this paradoxical predicament, we would do well to reexamine the subtly entrenched narratives that drive our individual and collective actions.

Make, Bake, And Take It To The Market, Katina Sayers-Walker

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

For the last two years, the village of Tully, located in southern Onondaga County, New York, has hosted the King’s Corner Market. Similar to other farmers markets across the country, the King’s Corner Market features products from local farmers, producers, and artisans, as well as live music. The mission of the market is “to provide the village of Tully with a positive, family-friendly, health-oriented event that allows residents to shop for the basics and beyond” (A. Kida, personal communication, August, 2013). Farmers, producers, artisans, and local music groups must be within a 30-mile radius from Tully, guaranteeing that the “buy …

Teach Your Children Well, Penny A. James; Karla A. Henderson; Aram Attarian

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

The nature of outdoor play has changed. Today children increasingly spend their free time in adult-led activities and indoor play (Hofferth & Sandberg, 2001). Concerns regarding this societal shift gained mainstream attention with the publication of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder (Louv, 2005). A back-to-nature movement ensued at national, state, and local levels with parks and recreation organizations creating programs designed to get children back into wild environments (e.g., Children in Nature Programs offered by the National Park Service). We proposed that the conversation surrounding the back-to-nature movement missed the mark on two critical …

College Corner, Tim O’Connell

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

Since 1981, the Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies at Brock University has been an established leader in undergraduate and graduate education. Brock is located in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, and sits atop the Niagara Escarpment, which was designated as a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve in 1990. The Bruce Trail, which starts in nearby Queenston Heights Park, is a hiking path that runs through campus and nearby Shorthills Provincial Park to its terminus on the Tobermory Peninsula (over 890 km or 550 miles away). These resources, as well as other local, regional, and provincial “crown lands,” provide an appropriate backdrop …

Book Reviews, Coalition For Education In The Outdoors

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

This section reviewed several books including:

HOT: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth, written by Mark Hertsgaard; reviewed by Kathryn Russell

The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability—Designing for Abundance, written by William McDonough and Michael Braungart; reviewed by Charles Yaple

In The News, Coalition For Education In The Outdoors

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

This section contains multiple brief news items related to conservation, environment, and outdoor education. Some items include "Green Space Improves Mental Health For At Least Three Years" and "Indonesia Struggles to Clean Up Corrupt Forestry Sector."

Conference Calendar, Coalition For Education In The Outdoors

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

This section provides a list of conferences in the field of outdoor education, including the "American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance Conference" and the "Anthropogenic Impacts on Coastal Communities and Ecosystems."

Now That I Know The Effects..., Mary Breunig

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

What ought and can be done about environmental degradation is contested and relates to opinions regarding fundamental cause(s). One of the solutions commonly suggested is education. One particular educational initiative in Ontario is the integrated Environmental Studies Programs (ESPs), wherein environmental topics are integrated into a holistic and interdisciplinary curriculum model taught at the secondary school level to students who register for a “package” of courses and spend the full semester with one to two teachers and a single student cohort (Russell & Burton, 2000; Sharpe & Breunig, 2009). The full-day cohort structure of ESPs provides for environmentally related experiential …

Critical Sustainability In Outdoor Education, Jeff Rose And Adrienne Cachelin

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

The socioecological challenges we face have never been so complex, so intractable, and so urgent. And while both justice-oriented education and education for sustainability are growing in colleges and universities across the United States, normative perspectives of outdoor experiential education have fallen behind. In this paper, we offer critical sustainability as a conceptual basis for engaging students in the beauty, perversity, and complexity of our world. Critical sustainability, integrating sociopolitical systems of privilege and oppression with the socioecological imperatives of global health and justice, provides an exciting and promising pedagogical direction. With this conceptual framework, we explore perspectives of “nature,” …

Resources, Coalition For Education In The Outdoors

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

This section lists teaching resources of all types for those who work in outdoor education at the time of publication. Some items include the books: "The Essential Urban Farmer" and "The Soul of Capitalism."

From The Editor, Charles Yaple

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

In this section, Charles Yaple discuses the importance of this issue's theme, social capital. He begins with an anecdote from his own childhood and goes on to summarize the main articles of this issue, all of which center on the need for community and the value of inter-generational relationships.

Professional Opportunities, Coalition For Education In The Outdoors

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

This section lists two opportunities for professional development related to outdoor education and environmental or conservation education. These options include a "Call for Abstracts" and a "Research Solicitation Announcement."

Conference Calendar, Coalition For Education In The Outdoors

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

This section provides a list of conferences in the filed of outdoor education including: the "Association of Nature Center Administrators Summit" and the "Wilderness Risk Management Conference."