The Ocean, Blue Spaces and Outdoor Learning

The Ocean, Blue Spaces and Outdoor Learning
Author: Mike Brown
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2024-07-24
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1040023347

This book explores the educational dimension of people’s engagement with the ocean. Across formal, informal, and nonformal learning contexts, it examines how experiences of the ocean and ‘blue spaces’ help us to understand ourselves, others, and our place within the natural environment, and the place of the ocean in our sociocultural and political life. Drawing on creative projects from around the world, the book introduces topics as diverse as ocean sailing, migrants’ experiences of learning to surf, experiencing seascapes through sounds, and the importance of fostering connections with the sea. It provides examples of innovative teaching and learning practices, and the pedagogical possibilities that engagement with the ocean offers to outdoor studies scholars and practitioners in terms of education, and the enhancement of our well-being and the environment. This is fascinating reading for advanced students, researchers, teachers, and educational practitioners with an interest in outdoor studies, experiential and outdoor learning, leisure and recreation studies, environmental studies, or geography.

Routledge Handbook of Mobile Technology, Social Media and the Outdoors

Routledge Handbook of Mobile Technology, Social Media and the Outdoors
Author: Simon Kennedy Beames
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 665
Release: 2024-08-29
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1040106471

This is the first book to explore the numerous ways in which mobile technologies and social media are influencing our outdoor experiences. Across the fields of outdoor education, outdoor recreation and leisure, and nature-based tourism, the book considers how practices within each of those domains are being influenced by dramatically shifting interactions between technology, humans, the natural world, and wider society. Drawing on cutting-edge research by leading scholars from around the world and exploring key concepts and theory, as well as developments in professional practice, the book explains how digital technology and media are no longer separate from typical human and social activity. Instead, the broader field of outdoor studies can be viewed as a world of intertwined socio-technical assemblages that need to be understood in more diverse ways. The book offers a full-spectrum view of this profound shift in our engagement with the world around us by presenting new work on subjects including networked spaces in residential outdoor education, digital competencies for outdoor educators, the use of social media in climbing communities, and the impact of digital technologies on experiences of adventure tourism. This is essential reading for anybody with an interest in outdoor studies, outdoor education, adventure education, leisure studies, tourism, environmental studies, environmental education, or science, technology, and society studies.

Contemporary Approaches to Outdoor Learning

Contemporary Approaches to Outdoor Learning
Author: Roger Cutting
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2022-03-03
Genre: Education
ISBN: 3030850951

This book explores contemporary developments in outdoor learning, where the outdoors is seen as the context rather than the subject of learning. Ranging from pathfinder pieces written by practitioners to rigorous research-based pieces of work, the book explores the growing interest in animals as the basis for wider learning strategies as well as drawing together a wide range of outdoor learning approaches for all ages. Within these two discrete sections the contributors, who are drawn from a wide range of practitioners, academics and researchers, describe and analyse innovative approaches that address the need to explore alternatives to current test-based approaches to education in the western world. The whole offers a contemporary, informative, alternative approach to outdoor learning for teachers, practitioners and students.

Blue Space, Health and Wellbeing

Blue Space, Health and Wellbeing
Author: Ronan Foley
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2019-02-06
Genre: Science
ISBN: 042963160X

Health geography makes critical contributions to contemporary and emerging interdisciplinary agendas of nature-based health and health-enabling places. Couched in theory and critical empirical work on nature and health, this book addresses questions on the relationships between water, health and wellbeing. Water and blue space is a key focus in current health geography research and a new hydrophilic turn has emerged with a particular focus on the aspects of water which are affective, life-enhancing and health-enabling. Research considers the benefits and risks associated with blue space, from access to safe and clean water in the Global South, to health promoting spaces found around urban waters, to the deeper implications of climate change for water-based livelihoods and indigenous cultures. This book reflects recent theoretical debates within health geography, drawing from research in the public health, anthropology and psychology sectors. Broad thematic sections focus on interdisciplinary, experiential and equity-based elements of blue space, with individual chapters that consider indigenous and global health, water’s healing properties, leisure and blue yogic culture, coastal landscapes, surfing, swimming and sailing, along with more contested hydrophobic dimensions. The interdisciplinary lens means this book will be extremely valuable to human geographers and cultural geographers. It will also appeal to practitioners and researchers interested in environmental health, leisure and tourism, health inequalities and public health more broadly.

Living with the Sea

Living with the Sea
Author: Mike Brown
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2018-10-03
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0429685424

The seas and oceans are currently taking centre stage in academic study and public consciousness. From the plastics littering our seas, to the role of climate change on ocean currents from unequal access of marine resources to the treacherous experiences of seafarers who keep our global economy afloat; now is a crucial time to examine how we live with the sea. This ambitious book brings together an interdisciplinary and international cohort of contributors from within and beyond academia. It offers a range and diversity of insights unlike previous collections. An ‘oceanic turn’ is taking place, with a burgeoning of academic work that takes seriously the place of seas and oceans in understanding socio-cultural and political life, past and present. Yet, there is a significant gap concerning the ways in which we engage with seas and oceans, with a will to enliven action and evoke change. This book explores these challenges, offering insights from spatial planning, architectural design, geography, educational studies, anthropology and cultural studies. An examination through these lenses can help us to better understand human relationships with the seas and oceans, and promote an ethic of care for the future.

The Routledge Handbook of Ocean Space

The Routledge Handbook of Ocean Space
Author: Kimberley Peters
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 591
Release: 2022-07-29
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1351619667

Invisible as the seas and oceans may be for so many of us, life as we know it is almost always connected to, and constituted by, activities and occurrences that take place in, on and under our oceans. The Routledge Handbook of Ocean Space provides a first port of call for scholars engaging in the ‘oceanic turn’ in the social sciences, offering a comprehensive summary of existing trends in making sense of our water worlds, alongside new, agenda-setting insights into the relationships between society and the ‘seas around us’. Accordingly, this ambitious text not only attends to a growing interest in our oceans, past and present; it is also situated in a broader spatial turn across the social sciences that seeks to account for how space and place are imbricated in socio-cultural and political life. Through six clearly structured and wide-ranging sections, The Routledge Handbook of Ocean Space examines and interrogates how the oceans are environmental, historical, social, cultural, political, legal and economic spaces, and also zones where national and international security comes into question. With a foreword and introduction authored by some of the leading scholars researching and writing about ocean spaces, alongside 31 further, carefully crafted chapters from established as well as early career academics, this book provides both an accessible guide to the subject and a cutting-edge collection of critical ideas and questions shaping the social sciences today. This handbook brings together the key debates defining the ‘field’ in one volume, appealing to a wide, cross-disciplinary social science and humanities audience. Moreover, drawing on a range of international examples, from a global collective of authors, this book promises to be the benchmark publication for those interested in ocean spaces, past and present. Indeed, as the seas and oceans continue to capture world-wide attention, and the social sciences continue their seaward ‘turn’, The Routledge Handbook of Ocean Space will provide an invaluable resource that reveals how our world is a water world.

Ocean Literacy: Understanding the Ocean

Ocean Literacy: Understanding the Ocean
Author: Kostis C. Koutsopoulos
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2021-06-28
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3030701557

This book provides an original review of Ocean Literacy as a component of public policy in Europe and beyond. The impact of the ocean on human activities is one of the most significant environmental issues facing humanity. By offering valuable insights into the interrelationships between geography, environment, marine science and education, the book explores key issues relating to the future of our planet and the way people respond to them. This volume discusses concepts concerning citizenship education and co-creation and the role of public policy and different international initiatives in raising awareness and mitigating the effects of over-use and misuse of valuable resources. A range of innovative projects are presented and evaluated from the local to national and global levels.This book advances knowledge and provides a picture of these advances, presents the issues and challenges, including the important role that geography education and geographical awareness could play in advancing the case for Ocean Literacy.This crossdisciplinary book appeals to students and scientists as well as professionals and practitioners in geography, environmental and marine sciences, international policy and many related fields.

Outdoor Environmental Education in Higher Education

Outdoor Environmental Education in Higher Education
Author: Glyn Thomas
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2021-11-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 3030759806

This book brings together an international group of authors to discuss the outdoor environmental education (OEE) theory and practice that educators can use to support teaching and learning in higher education. The book contents are organised around a recently established list of threshold concepts that can be used to describe the knowledge and skills that university students would develop if they complete a major in outdoor education. There are six key sections: the theoretical foundations and philosophies of OEE; the pedagogical approaches and issues involved in teaching OEE; the ways in which OEE is a social, cultural and environmental endeavour; how outdoor educators can advocate for social justice; key approaches to safety management; and the need for on-going professional practice. The threshold concepts that form the premise of the book describe outdoor educators as creating opportunities for experiential learning using pedagogies that align their programme’s purpose and practice. Outdoor educators are place-responsive, and see their work as a social, cultural and environmental endeavour. They advocate for social and environmental justice, and they understand and apply safety principles and routinely engage in reflective practice. This book will provide clarity and direction for emerging and established outdoor educators around the world and will also be relevant to students and professionals working in related fields such as environmental education, adventure therapy, and outdoor recreation.

Outdoor Learning through the Seasons

Outdoor Learning through the Seasons
Author: Ann Watts
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2020-05-14
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1000050076

Outdoor learning and play experiences are an essential part of young children’s development. The importance of offering children first-hand experience of the natural world becomes more urgent as research evidence demonstrates the benefits of becoming physically and emotionally involved with the natural world. Outdoor Learning through the Seasons shows how we can encourage young children to engage with nature on a daily basis throughout the year. Using the four seasons as a framework, it supports adults to develop their own awareness of the world around them and feel confident about taking children outside every day. There are suggestions for caring for gardens and wildlife through the year, and ideas to brighten grey winter days, enjoy the summer sunshine or explore in the snow. Now featuring full-colour photographs throughout, this new edition has been updated to include references to recent research, new material on Forest Schools, discussion questions for practitioners and in-depth case studies of learning in action. Features include: Ideas for all seasons, weather conditions and working with the four elements: earth, air, water and fire Guidance on fulfilling the learning requirements of EYFS and the Characteristics of Effective Learning Advice on working with parents and the role of adults Practical tips and suggestions of how to make the most of a small space or how to re-plan an existing space Useful reference lists of further resources including stories, poems and websites This practical book is essential reading for all those looking to provide rich and stimulating outdoor learning and play provision for children in early years settings on a daily basis and for parents and carers wishing to get the most of time outdoors with their children.