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Outdoor Adventure Education
Foundations, Theory, and Research
by Alan Ewert and Jim Sibthorp
216 Pages
Outdoor Adventure Education: Foundations, Theory, and Research steeps students in the theories, concepts, and developments of outdoor adventure education, preparing them for careers in this burgeoning field.
This text is based on author Alan W. Ewert’s pioneering book Outdoor Adventure Pursuits: Foundations, Models, and Theories. Ewert and Sibthorp, both experienced practitioners, researchers, and educators, explore the outdoor adventure field today in relation to the changes that have occurred since Ewert’s first book. The authors present a comprehensive text on outdoor and adventure foundations, theories, and research that will provide the basis for the next generation of professionals.
Outdoor Adventure Education offers a comprehensive view of the expanding discipline of outdoor adventure education in its various settings. In addition to its foundational, theoretical, and conceptual insights, this text presents the following:
• Why This Chapter Is Important introductions that present snapshots of ideas and concepts and how they apply to future professionals
• Chapter discussion and research questions to expand knowledge and research skills to support the learning gained through the book
• Sidebars from well-known international researchers who present their views on the chapter topics
The book is presented in three parts. Part I explores foundational issues of outdoor adventure education, offering an overview of the field and examining both historical developments and current practices. Part II investigates theoretical constructs and extant theories, emphasizing how they inform the professional’s view of program evidence, design, and implementation. In part III, the authors delve into research and evidence-based practices in the field and look at evolving trends and issues as outdoor adventure education continues to grow.
Outdoor Adventure Education uses evidence, design, and implementation as its underlying themes. It shows students and professionals how to apply theories and research in constructing frameworks for outdoor adventure education experiences and how to evaluate those experiences. As such, it is an indispensable resource that prepares students and professionals alike for success in their careers in outdoor adventure education.
Part I Foundations
Chapter 1. Overview of Outdoor Adventure Education
Defining Adventure
Defining Outdoor Adventure Education
Types of Definitions
Evidence, Design, and Implementation
Summary
Issues for Further Discussion
Chapter 2. History of Outdoor Adventure Education
Early Explorers and Adventure Seekers
Exploration and the Quest for Adventure
Adventure in Transition
The Concepts of Leisure and Recreation
The Advent of Adventure Recreation
Formalized Schools of Adventure Education
Summary
Issues for Further Discussion
Chapter 3. Outdoor Adventure in Contemporary Practice
Programs and Practice
Components of the OAE Experience
Philosophical Basis
The Adventure Progression
Summary
Issues for Further Discussion
Chapter 4. Managing Motivation, Risk, Fear, and Stress
Motivations in OAE
Risk and Risk Taking
Fear in OAE
Summary
Issues for Further Discussion
Part II Theory
Chapter 5. Theoretical Constructs Used in Outdoor Adventure Education
Theory and Model Development
Dissecting the Concept of Theory
Models in Outdoor Adventure Education
Summary
Issues for Further Discussion
Chapter 6. Extant Theories and Key Constructs in Outdoor Adventure Education
Promising Explanatory Frameworks
Key Theories
Key Learning Constructs
Summary
Issues for Further Discussion
Chapter 7. Development Across the Life Span
Youth and Adolescents
Emerging Adults
Adults
Older Adults
Additional Views of Human Development
Summary
Issues for Further Discussion
Part III Research
Chapter 8. Evaluation Research
Common Purposes of Evaluation
Case Study: The WRMC Incident Reporting Database
Common Evaluation Techniques
Alternative Evaluations: Best Practices and Benchmarking
Common Limitations
Summary
Issues for Further Discussion
Chapter 9. Outcomes of Participation
Common Participation Outcomes
Program Qualities
Summary
Issues for Further Discussion
Chapter 10. State of OAE Research
The Role of Research
Early Research in OAE
OAE Research Matures
Current Trends
Summary
Issues for Further Discussion
Chapter 11. Improving Research
Challenges in OAE Research
Strengthening Research
Summary
Issues for Further Discussion
Chapter 12. Evolving Trends and Issues
Changing Levels and Types of Use
Impacts of Technology
Changing Values
Consumerism
Future Challenges
Summary
Issues for Future Discussion
Alan Ewert, PhD, is a distinguished and titled professor at Indiana University. He holds the Patricia and Joel Meier Endowed Chair in Outdoor Leadership and served as the editor of the Journal of Experiential Education. He was the 1996 recipient of the Reynold E. Carlson Award for Distinction in Outdoor Environmental Education; the 2002 recipient of the J.B. Nash Scholar Award through the American Association for Leisure and Recreation; the 2005 recipient of the Julian W. Smith Award through the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance; and the 2013 Association of Experiential Education’s Distinguished Researcher. A prolific scholar, Ewert has published articles in a variety of journals and books related to outdoor leadership and recreation. He continues his professional service through numerous venues, including his status as a fellow and past president of the Academy of Leisure Sciences and one of the founding editors of the International Journal of Wilderness. Dr. Ewert also serves as a course director and instructor for Outward Bound and the Wilderness Education Association.
Jim Sibthorp, PhD, is associate professor and the coordinator of Adventure and Outdoor Programs in the department of parks, recreation and tourism at the University of Utah. He has written numerous publications in adventure-based programming and outdoor adventure education. Much of his current research stems from partnerships with the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) and the American Camp Association. He has served the profession in many ways, including as co-chair of the NRPA Leisure Research Symposium, an editorial advisor for the Journal of Experiential Education, and an associate editor of Leisure Sciences and Research in Outdoor Education. He served on the research committees for Outward Bound and the Coalition for Education in the Outdoors. He is an active field instructor with NOLS, and he has received numerous awards, including Indiana University’s Eppley Alumni Award and the University of Utah College of Health Distinguished Mentor Award for his work with graduate students.
What is Outdoor Adventure Education?
The English word adventure comes from the French term aventure, which evolved from the Latin term adventurus, which means simply “about to arrive” but which over time has come to connote an exciting event that contains elements of risk and/or danger and where the outcome is uncertain.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/120/5ph_Main.png
The English word adventure comes from the French term aventure, which evolved from the Latin term adventurus, which means simply “about to arrive” but which over time has come to connote an exciting event that contains elements of risk and/or danger and where the outcome is uncertain.
The term adventure is broad enough to cover any enterprise potentially fraught with risk, such as a business venture, major life undertaking, or even trying a new restaurant. But for our purposes in this book, and relative to OAE in general, adventure will imply a pursuit in an outdoor setting within an educational context.
Characteristics of adventure as generated by practitioners and scholars in OAE include the following:
- Uncertainty of outcome (Hopkins & Putnam, 1993)
- Compelling tasks primarily concerned with interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships (Priest & Gass, 2005)
- A state of mind that begins with feelings of uncertainty about the outcome of a journey and always ends with feelings of enjoyment, satisfaction, or elation about the successful completion of that journey (see Colin Mortlock's Adventure Education and Outdoor Pursuits [1983])
- A search for excellence, an expression of human dignity, an act of the whole person. The concept of adventure implies not only action and intensity but also returning triumphantly, coming home, re-entry. This re-entry includes a period of telling, of piecing together, of sifting the meaning of the story (Nold, 1978).
Most agree that adventure involves uncertainty. Priest and Gass focus on the nurturing and social aspects of adventure, citing how people are changed both within themselves and in their relationships with those who experienced the adventure with them. Joseph Nold speaks of the coming back, the idea that no adventure is complete without the telling of the tale. This telling, and retelling, of the story evokes the archetypal adventure story, the encountering of unforeseen events of which the outcome is uncertain, and upon return, sharing the story with others. Think of one of the first great adventure stories, Homer's Odyssey, a recounting of the adventurous exploits of the Greek soldier Odysseus (known to the Romans as Ulysses), and how many times this tale or similar ones have been retold.
Defining Outdoor Adventure Education
Adventure has long played a critical role in human development, but only recently have adventure and outdoor experiences shifted from necessary or utilitarian to primarily recreational. Consider the risk and danger our ancestors faced in getting close enough to kill a wild animal with a spear. In many ways, as technology has allowed humans to gain greater advantage over their natural environment, the world has become a far safer place, with a greater assurance of securing food, at least for some. With the advent of mechanization, our relationship to risk has significantly evolved with most outdoor adventures usually not becoming matters of personal survival. Where we once accepted risk in order to survive, we now pursue risk in order to thrive—to feel as though we are making the most of our lives. During this shift in our perspective on risk, the field of OAE originated.
OAE has been defined in many ways, including all of the following:
- Direct, active, and engaging learning experiences that involve the whole person and have real consequences (Prouty, 2007)
- . . . education that focuses on the development of interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships while participating in outdoor activities that include attributes of risk and challenge (Wagstaff & Attarian, 2009, p. 15)
- . . . education that is conducted in a wilderness-like setting or through nature and physical skills development to promote interpersonal growth or enhance physical skills in outdoor pursuits (Gilbertson, Bates, McLaughlin, & Ewert, 2006, p. 8.)
Because it can be applied in a variety of settings and situations and because it remains true to the original concept of adventure, we use the following definition of OAE: A variety of teaching and learning activities and experiences usually involving a close interaction with an outdoor natural setting and containing elements of real or perceived danger or risk in which the outcome, although uncertain, can be influenced by the actions of the participants and circumstances.
Let's look more closely at our definition of OAE. First, in the teaching, learning, and experiencing that occur in OAE, education is of primary importance. Wagstaff and Attarian (2009), for example, suggest that OAE instructors serve three functions in the realm of adventure education: facilitating the experience, safeguarding the experience, and minimizing the impacts on the natural environment. Of course each of these functions involves making the experience as educational as possible for all participants, taking advantage of every opportunity to teach the hows, whens, and whys implicit in each experience. In a sense, OAE instructors often strive to explain the adventure activity in addition to actually doing the activity.
Second, note the (typically) close interaction with the outdoor environment. Although some climbing walls and rope course facilities are indoors, a natural setting serves as a key component in the education process for the vast majority of OAE programs—for reasons we shall explore later.
Third, in our definition and most others, OAE typically contains elements of real or perceived risk. Risk can be real and inherent to an activity, such as a rock fall in a rock-climbing area, or can be merely (mis)perceived by participants within a safe activity. That is, instructors can manage an adventure site to make activities seem risky when in fact there is a very small chance of actual injury or loss. One example is employing a top rope in rock climbing where there is little chance of rockfall and a competent person is belaying the climber. For the participant, it often seems quite risky and dangerous when, in reality, the activity is quite safe.
Fourth, in our definition of OAE, outcomes tend to be uncertain. Such factors as weather, terrain, participant abilities and attitudes, and equipment can make program outcomes quite unpredictable. Uncertainty plays an important role in adventure programs primarily because of what it can teach participants. Although often psychologically uncomfortable, uncertainty can force participants to confront their anxieties, analyze their decision-making abilities, and assess their physical, emotional, and leadership skills.
Of course the amount of risk involved in uncertain outcomes can be significantly influenced by the skills of the participants. Participants can use their intuition, training, personal abilities, and team resources to make good decisions and take effective action to deal with uncertain outcomes.
Circumstance and luck also play roles in uncertain outcomes. The ability to make accurate decisions tends to be largely affected by circumstance. Despite ambiguity inherent to many situations, the goal is always to gather as much information as possible, analyze the situation, make an informed and careful decision, and take the best possible action given the circumstances.
Learn more about Outdoor Adventure Education.
Impacts of technology in outdoor recreation and adventure
Technology plays an increasingly influential and important role in outdoor recreation and adventure. The last 10 years, in particular, have seen a virtual explosion of technological developments in the outdoors, ranging from clothes to equipment such as signaling devices and protective gear.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/120/169ph_Main.png
Technology plays an increasingly influential and important role in outdoor recreation and adventure. The last 10 years, in particular, have seen a virtual explosion of technological developments in the outdoors, ranging from clothes to equipment such as signaling devices and protective gear. There are five areas in which technology has played a significant role in the realm of outdoor and adventure recreation:
- access and transportation,
- comfort,
- safety,
- communication, and
- information.
Each of these areas has resulted in greater use of the outdoors, differing expectations, and changes in public policy.
For example, technology has increased access and transportation through improvements in overland travel such as snowmobiles and off-road vehicles (ORVs). These machines have allowed visitors to get further into remote areas faster and with less effort. Likewise, comfort in the outdoors has been substantially improved through lighter weight, more effective clothing, tents, boots, and so on. This reduced weight coupled with greater effectiveness has resulted in more people, within a greater age range and across ability levels, to get into extremely remote or challenging areas.
Technology has worked in two ways that relate to safety. First, improved technology has increased the level of safety available to both individuals and groups. By and large, equipment is stronger, lighter, and more versatile, though in some cases higher levels of skill and expertise is necessary to use it. For example, dive computers have essentially replaced dive tables for diving. Although reliable and extremely useful, they also require divers to understand how to use them with enough competence to capitalize on the safety features they provide.
Second, communication is the area experiencing the fastest technological growth. With the advent of GPS units, 36-mile radios, PLBs and EPIRBs (personal locator beacons and emergency position indicating radio beacons), satellite telephones, smart phone apps, and increased cellular coverage, technology now allows outdoor enthusiasts to know precisely where they are, how fast they are moving and in what direction, and how to signal for help—all at the press of a button. The potential danger of these technological advances lies in two areas. First, knowing what direction and exactly how far you need to go to reach a particular point might make you more likely to go for it, but there's no guarantee you will actually reach your destination. Ravines, canyons, mountains, steep slopes, avalanche areas, and severe weather may all conspire to make sure you don't get where you want to go. Second, technology sometimes does not work. Just as helicopters cannot always fly to your location, a GPS or handheld radio might not be in operation for a variety of reasons, such as dead batteries, remote location, or exposure to elements such as rain.
Historically, information was often obtained through word of mouth, asking the area ranger, or finding a map or brochure. Now, within the context of outdoor recreation and adventure, information is usually accessed via the Internet, automated telephone exchange, or guidebooks. Again, this ease and convenience of accessing information generally leads to increases in use, particularly in areas that have not seen much use because of their remote or difficult location.
This increased use, however, does not come without a price, namely in visitors finding themselves in situations far more challenging than their skill or knowledge levels can accommodate. Added to this, they are often in locations so remote that no one can easily get to them. Technology can also create a deceptive “bubble of safety.”
That is, when substituted for skill or expertise, technology can create an illusion of safety or security that allows people to become complacent, only to discover, perhaps at a critical moment, that no such safety mechanism exists (Ewert & Shultis, 1999). For example, an avalanche beacon can be a lifesaver, but no beacon ever prevented an avalanche from occurring, and if you are buried by one, your chances of survival are automatically decreased by 50 percent.
In sum, technology has contributed a number of benefits to OAE activities and participants. It has increased comfort and safety, improved access, enhanced communication, and enlarged the information base from which we make decisions. It has also been known to create illusions of safety and might create a different set of expectations in relation to outdoor settings. Underskilled participants can find themselves in situations that require search and rescue (SAR) or other forms of assistance from managing or government agencies. In such cases, technology serves to increase demands on the environment and land resources rather than decreasing them
Learn more about Outdoor Adventure Education.
What is Outdoor Adventure Education?
The English word adventure comes from the French term aventure, which evolved from the Latin term adventurus, which means simply “about to arrive” but which over time has come to connote an exciting event that contains elements of risk and/or danger and where the outcome is uncertain.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/120/5ph_Main.png
The English word adventure comes from the French term aventure, which evolved from the Latin term adventurus, which means simply “about to arrive” but which over time has come to connote an exciting event that contains elements of risk and/or danger and where the outcome is uncertain.
The term adventure is broad enough to cover any enterprise potentially fraught with risk, such as a business venture, major life undertaking, or even trying a new restaurant. But for our purposes in this book, and relative to OAE in general, adventure will imply a pursuit in an outdoor setting within an educational context.
Characteristics of adventure as generated by practitioners and scholars in OAE include the following:
- Uncertainty of outcome (Hopkins & Putnam, 1993)
- Compelling tasks primarily concerned with interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships (Priest & Gass, 2005)
- A state of mind that begins with feelings of uncertainty about the outcome of a journey and always ends with feelings of enjoyment, satisfaction, or elation about the successful completion of that journey (see Colin Mortlock's Adventure Education and Outdoor Pursuits [1983])
- A search for excellence, an expression of human dignity, an act of the whole person. The concept of adventure implies not only action and intensity but also returning triumphantly, coming home, re-entry. This re-entry includes a period of telling, of piecing together, of sifting the meaning of the story (Nold, 1978).
Most agree that adventure involves uncertainty. Priest and Gass focus on the nurturing and social aspects of adventure, citing how people are changed both within themselves and in their relationships with those who experienced the adventure with them. Joseph Nold speaks of the coming back, the idea that no adventure is complete without the telling of the tale. This telling, and retelling, of the story evokes the archetypal adventure story, the encountering of unforeseen events of which the outcome is uncertain, and upon return, sharing the story with others. Think of one of the first great adventure stories, Homer's Odyssey, a recounting of the adventurous exploits of the Greek soldier Odysseus (known to the Romans as Ulysses), and how many times this tale or similar ones have been retold.
Defining Outdoor Adventure Education
Adventure has long played a critical role in human development, but only recently have adventure and outdoor experiences shifted from necessary or utilitarian to primarily recreational. Consider the risk and danger our ancestors faced in getting close enough to kill a wild animal with a spear. In many ways, as technology has allowed humans to gain greater advantage over their natural environment, the world has become a far safer place, with a greater assurance of securing food, at least for some. With the advent of mechanization, our relationship to risk has significantly evolved with most outdoor adventures usually not becoming matters of personal survival. Where we once accepted risk in order to survive, we now pursue risk in order to thrive—to feel as though we are making the most of our lives. During this shift in our perspective on risk, the field of OAE originated.
OAE has been defined in many ways, including all of the following:
- Direct, active, and engaging learning experiences that involve the whole person and have real consequences (Prouty, 2007)
- . . . education that focuses on the development of interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships while participating in outdoor activities that include attributes of risk and challenge (Wagstaff & Attarian, 2009, p. 15)
- . . . education that is conducted in a wilderness-like setting or through nature and physical skills development to promote interpersonal growth or enhance physical skills in outdoor pursuits (Gilbertson, Bates, McLaughlin, & Ewert, 2006, p. 8.)
Because it can be applied in a variety of settings and situations and because it remains true to the original concept of adventure, we use the following definition of OAE: A variety of teaching and learning activities and experiences usually involving a close interaction with an outdoor natural setting and containing elements of real or perceived danger or risk in which the outcome, although uncertain, can be influenced by the actions of the participants and circumstances.
Let's look more closely at our definition of OAE. First, in the teaching, learning, and experiencing that occur in OAE, education is of primary importance. Wagstaff and Attarian (2009), for example, suggest that OAE instructors serve three functions in the realm of adventure education: facilitating the experience, safeguarding the experience, and minimizing the impacts on the natural environment. Of course each of these functions involves making the experience as educational as possible for all participants, taking advantage of every opportunity to teach the hows, whens, and whys implicit in each experience. In a sense, OAE instructors often strive to explain the adventure activity in addition to actually doing the activity.
Second, note the (typically) close interaction with the outdoor environment. Although some climbing walls and rope course facilities are indoors, a natural setting serves as a key component in the education process for the vast majority of OAE programs—for reasons we shall explore later.
Third, in our definition and most others, OAE typically contains elements of real or perceived risk. Risk can be real and inherent to an activity, such as a rock fall in a rock-climbing area, or can be merely (mis)perceived by participants within a safe activity. That is, instructors can manage an adventure site to make activities seem risky when in fact there is a very small chance of actual injury or loss. One example is employing a top rope in rock climbing where there is little chance of rockfall and a competent person is belaying the climber. For the participant, it often seems quite risky and dangerous when, in reality, the activity is quite safe.
Fourth, in our definition of OAE, outcomes tend to be uncertain. Such factors as weather, terrain, participant abilities and attitudes, and equipment can make program outcomes quite unpredictable. Uncertainty plays an important role in adventure programs primarily because of what it can teach participants. Although often psychologically uncomfortable, uncertainty can force participants to confront their anxieties, analyze their decision-making abilities, and assess their physical, emotional, and leadership skills.
Of course the amount of risk involved in uncertain outcomes can be significantly influenced by the skills of the participants. Participants can use their intuition, training, personal abilities, and team resources to make good decisions and take effective action to deal with uncertain outcomes.
Circumstance and luck also play roles in uncertain outcomes. The ability to make accurate decisions tends to be largely affected by circumstance. Despite ambiguity inherent to many situations, the goal is always to gather as much information as possible, analyze the situation, make an informed and careful decision, and take the best possible action given the circumstances.
Learn more about Outdoor Adventure Education.
Impacts of technology in outdoor recreation and adventure
Technology plays an increasingly influential and important role in outdoor recreation and adventure. The last 10 years, in particular, have seen a virtual explosion of technological developments in the outdoors, ranging from clothes to equipment such as signaling devices and protective gear.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/120/169ph_Main.png
Technology plays an increasingly influential and important role in outdoor recreation and adventure. The last 10 years, in particular, have seen a virtual explosion of technological developments in the outdoors, ranging from clothes to equipment such as signaling devices and protective gear. There are five areas in which technology has played a significant role in the realm of outdoor and adventure recreation:
- access and transportation,
- comfort,
- safety,
- communication, and
- information.
Each of these areas has resulted in greater use of the outdoors, differing expectations, and changes in public policy.
For example, technology has increased access and transportation through improvements in overland travel such as snowmobiles and off-road vehicles (ORVs). These machines have allowed visitors to get further into remote areas faster and with less effort. Likewise, comfort in the outdoors has been substantially improved through lighter weight, more effective clothing, tents, boots, and so on. This reduced weight coupled with greater effectiveness has resulted in more people, within a greater age range and across ability levels, to get into extremely remote or challenging areas.
Technology has worked in two ways that relate to safety. First, improved technology has increased the level of safety available to both individuals and groups. By and large, equipment is stronger, lighter, and more versatile, though in some cases higher levels of skill and expertise is necessary to use it. For example, dive computers have essentially replaced dive tables for diving. Although reliable and extremely useful, they also require divers to understand how to use them with enough competence to capitalize on the safety features they provide.
Second, communication is the area experiencing the fastest technological growth. With the advent of GPS units, 36-mile radios, PLBs and EPIRBs (personal locator beacons and emergency position indicating radio beacons), satellite telephones, smart phone apps, and increased cellular coverage, technology now allows outdoor enthusiasts to know precisely where they are, how fast they are moving and in what direction, and how to signal for help—all at the press of a button. The potential danger of these technological advances lies in two areas. First, knowing what direction and exactly how far you need to go to reach a particular point might make you more likely to go for it, but there's no guarantee you will actually reach your destination. Ravines, canyons, mountains, steep slopes, avalanche areas, and severe weather may all conspire to make sure you don't get where you want to go. Second, technology sometimes does not work. Just as helicopters cannot always fly to your location, a GPS or handheld radio might not be in operation for a variety of reasons, such as dead batteries, remote location, or exposure to elements such as rain.
Historically, information was often obtained through word of mouth, asking the area ranger, or finding a map or brochure. Now, within the context of outdoor recreation and adventure, information is usually accessed via the Internet, automated telephone exchange, or guidebooks. Again, this ease and convenience of accessing information generally leads to increases in use, particularly in areas that have not seen much use because of their remote or difficult location.
This increased use, however, does not come without a price, namely in visitors finding themselves in situations far more challenging than their skill or knowledge levels can accommodate. Added to this, they are often in locations so remote that no one can easily get to them. Technology can also create a deceptive “bubble of safety.”
That is, when substituted for skill or expertise, technology can create an illusion of safety or security that allows people to become complacent, only to discover, perhaps at a critical moment, that no such safety mechanism exists (Ewert & Shultis, 1999). For example, an avalanche beacon can be a lifesaver, but no beacon ever prevented an avalanche from occurring, and if you are buried by one, your chances of survival are automatically decreased by 50 percent.
In sum, technology has contributed a number of benefits to OAE activities and participants. It has increased comfort and safety, improved access, enhanced communication, and enlarged the information base from which we make decisions. It has also been known to create illusions of safety and might create a different set of expectations in relation to outdoor settings. Underskilled participants can find themselves in situations that require search and rescue (SAR) or other forms of assistance from managing or government agencies. In such cases, technology serves to increase demands on the environment and land resources rather than decreasing them
Learn more about Outdoor Adventure Education.
What is Outdoor Adventure Education?
The English word adventure comes from the French term aventure, which evolved from the Latin term adventurus, which means simply “about to arrive” but which over time has come to connote an exciting event that contains elements of risk and/or danger and where the outcome is uncertain.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/120/5ph_Main.png
The English word adventure comes from the French term aventure, which evolved from the Latin term adventurus, which means simply “about to arrive” but which over time has come to connote an exciting event that contains elements of risk and/or danger and where the outcome is uncertain.
The term adventure is broad enough to cover any enterprise potentially fraught with risk, such as a business venture, major life undertaking, or even trying a new restaurant. But for our purposes in this book, and relative to OAE in general, adventure will imply a pursuit in an outdoor setting within an educational context.
Characteristics of adventure as generated by practitioners and scholars in OAE include the following:
- Uncertainty of outcome (Hopkins & Putnam, 1993)
- Compelling tasks primarily concerned with interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships (Priest & Gass, 2005)
- A state of mind that begins with feelings of uncertainty about the outcome of a journey and always ends with feelings of enjoyment, satisfaction, or elation about the successful completion of that journey (see Colin Mortlock's Adventure Education and Outdoor Pursuits [1983])
- A search for excellence, an expression of human dignity, an act of the whole person. The concept of adventure implies not only action and intensity but also returning triumphantly, coming home, re-entry. This re-entry includes a period of telling, of piecing together, of sifting the meaning of the story (Nold, 1978).
Most agree that adventure involves uncertainty. Priest and Gass focus on the nurturing and social aspects of adventure, citing how people are changed both within themselves and in their relationships with those who experienced the adventure with them. Joseph Nold speaks of the coming back, the idea that no adventure is complete without the telling of the tale. This telling, and retelling, of the story evokes the archetypal adventure story, the encountering of unforeseen events of which the outcome is uncertain, and upon return, sharing the story with others. Think of one of the first great adventure stories, Homer's Odyssey, a recounting of the adventurous exploits of the Greek soldier Odysseus (known to the Romans as Ulysses), and how many times this tale or similar ones have been retold.
Defining Outdoor Adventure Education
Adventure has long played a critical role in human development, but only recently have adventure and outdoor experiences shifted from necessary or utilitarian to primarily recreational. Consider the risk and danger our ancestors faced in getting close enough to kill a wild animal with a spear. In many ways, as technology has allowed humans to gain greater advantage over their natural environment, the world has become a far safer place, with a greater assurance of securing food, at least for some. With the advent of mechanization, our relationship to risk has significantly evolved with most outdoor adventures usually not becoming matters of personal survival. Where we once accepted risk in order to survive, we now pursue risk in order to thrive—to feel as though we are making the most of our lives. During this shift in our perspective on risk, the field of OAE originated.
OAE has been defined in many ways, including all of the following:
- Direct, active, and engaging learning experiences that involve the whole person and have real consequences (Prouty, 2007)
- . . . education that focuses on the development of interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships while participating in outdoor activities that include attributes of risk and challenge (Wagstaff & Attarian, 2009, p. 15)
- . . . education that is conducted in a wilderness-like setting or through nature and physical skills development to promote interpersonal growth or enhance physical skills in outdoor pursuits (Gilbertson, Bates, McLaughlin, & Ewert, 2006, p. 8.)
Because it can be applied in a variety of settings and situations and because it remains true to the original concept of adventure, we use the following definition of OAE: A variety of teaching and learning activities and experiences usually involving a close interaction with an outdoor natural setting and containing elements of real or perceived danger or risk in which the outcome, although uncertain, can be influenced by the actions of the participants and circumstances.
Let's look more closely at our definition of OAE. First, in the teaching, learning, and experiencing that occur in OAE, education is of primary importance. Wagstaff and Attarian (2009), for example, suggest that OAE instructors serve three functions in the realm of adventure education: facilitating the experience, safeguarding the experience, and minimizing the impacts on the natural environment. Of course each of these functions involves making the experience as educational as possible for all participants, taking advantage of every opportunity to teach the hows, whens, and whys implicit in each experience. In a sense, OAE instructors often strive to explain the adventure activity in addition to actually doing the activity.
Second, note the (typically) close interaction with the outdoor environment. Although some climbing walls and rope course facilities are indoors, a natural setting serves as a key component in the education process for the vast majority of OAE programs—for reasons we shall explore later.
Third, in our definition and most others, OAE typically contains elements of real or perceived risk. Risk can be real and inherent to an activity, such as a rock fall in a rock-climbing area, or can be merely (mis)perceived by participants within a safe activity. That is, instructors can manage an adventure site to make activities seem risky when in fact there is a very small chance of actual injury or loss. One example is employing a top rope in rock climbing where there is little chance of rockfall and a competent person is belaying the climber. For the participant, it often seems quite risky and dangerous when, in reality, the activity is quite safe.
Fourth, in our definition of OAE, outcomes tend to be uncertain. Such factors as weather, terrain, participant abilities and attitudes, and equipment can make program outcomes quite unpredictable. Uncertainty plays an important role in adventure programs primarily because of what it can teach participants. Although often psychologically uncomfortable, uncertainty can force participants to confront their anxieties, analyze their decision-making abilities, and assess their physical, emotional, and leadership skills.
Of course the amount of risk involved in uncertain outcomes can be significantly influenced by the skills of the participants. Participants can use their intuition, training, personal abilities, and team resources to make good decisions and take effective action to deal with uncertain outcomes.
Circumstance and luck also play roles in uncertain outcomes. The ability to make accurate decisions tends to be largely affected by circumstance. Despite ambiguity inherent to many situations, the goal is always to gather as much information as possible, analyze the situation, make an informed and careful decision, and take the best possible action given the circumstances.
Learn more about Outdoor Adventure Education.
Impacts of technology in outdoor recreation and adventure
Technology plays an increasingly influential and important role in outdoor recreation and adventure. The last 10 years, in particular, have seen a virtual explosion of technological developments in the outdoors, ranging from clothes to equipment such as signaling devices and protective gear.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/120/169ph_Main.png
Technology plays an increasingly influential and important role in outdoor recreation and adventure. The last 10 years, in particular, have seen a virtual explosion of technological developments in the outdoors, ranging from clothes to equipment such as signaling devices and protective gear. There are five areas in which technology has played a significant role in the realm of outdoor and adventure recreation:
- access and transportation,
- comfort,
- safety,
- communication, and
- information.
Each of these areas has resulted in greater use of the outdoors, differing expectations, and changes in public policy.
For example, technology has increased access and transportation through improvements in overland travel such as snowmobiles and off-road vehicles (ORVs). These machines have allowed visitors to get further into remote areas faster and with less effort. Likewise, comfort in the outdoors has been substantially improved through lighter weight, more effective clothing, tents, boots, and so on. This reduced weight coupled with greater effectiveness has resulted in more people, within a greater age range and across ability levels, to get into extremely remote or challenging areas.
Technology has worked in two ways that relate to safety. First, improved technology has increased the level of safety available to both individuals and groups. By and large, equipment is stronger, lighter, and more versatile, though in some cases higher levels of skill and expertise is necessary to use it. For example, dive computers have essentially replaced dive tables for diving. Although reliable and extremely useful, they also require divers to understand how to use them with enough competence to capitalize on the safety features they provide.
Second, communication is the area experiencing the fastest technological growth. With the advent of GPS units, 36-mile radios, PLBs and EPIRBs (personal locator beacons and emergency position indicating radio beacons), satellite telephones, smart phone apps, and increased cellular coverage, technology now allows outdoor enthusiasts to know precisely where they are, how fast they are moving and in what direction, and how to signal for help—all at the press of a button. The potential danger of these technological advances lies in two areas. First, knowing what direction and exactly how far you need to go to reach a particular point might make you more likely to go for it, but there's no guarantee you will actually reach your destination. Ravines, canyons, mountains, steep slopes, avalanche areas, and severe weather may all conspire to make sure you don't get where you want to go. Second, technology sometimes does not work. Just as helicopters cannot always fly to your location, a GPS or handheld radio might not be in operation for a variety of reasons, such as dead batteries, remote location, or exposure to elements such as rain.
Historically, information was often obtained through word of mouth, asking the area ranger, or finding a map or brochure. Now, within the context of outdoor recreation and adventure, information is usually accessed via the Internet, automated telephone exchange, or guidebooks. Again, this ease and convenience of accessing information generally leads to increases in use, particularly in areas that have not seen much use because of their remote or difficult location.
This increased use, however, does not come without a price, namely in visitors finding themselves in situations far more challenging than their skill or knowledge levels can accommodate. Added to this, they are often in locations so remote that no one can easily get to them. Technology can also create a deceptive “bubble of safety.”
That is, when substituted for skill or expertise, technology can create an illusion of safety or security that allows people to become complacent, only to discover, perhaps at a critical moment, that no such safety mechanism exists (Ewert & Shultis, 1999). For example, an avalanche beacon can be a lifesaver, but no beacon ever prevented an avalanche from occurring, and if you are buried by one, your chances of survival are automatically decreased by 50 percent.
In sum, technology has contributed a number of benefits to OAE activities and participants. It has increased comfort and safety, improved access, enhanced communication, and enlarged the information base from which we make decisions. It has also been known to create illusions of safety and might create a different set of expectations in relation to outdoor settings. Underskilled participants can find themselves in situations that require search and rescue (SAR) or other forms of assistance from managing or government agencies. In such cases, technology serves to increase demands on the environment and land resources rather than decreasing them
Learn more about Outdoor Adventure Education.
What is Outdoor Adventure Education?
The English word adventure comes from the French term aventure, which evolved from the Latin term adventurus, which means simply “about to arrive” but which over time has come to connote an exciting event that contains elements of risk and/or danger and where the outcome is uncertain.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/120/5ph_Main.png
The English word adventure comes from the French term aventure, which evolved from the Latin term adventurus, which means simply “about to arrive” but which over time has come to connote an exciting event that contains elements of risk and/or danger and where the outcome is uncertain.
The term adventure is broad enough to cover any enterprise potentially fraught with risk, such as a business venture, major life undertaking, or even trying a new restaurant. But for our purposes in this book, and relative to OAE in general, adventure will imply a pursuit in an outdoor setting within an educational context.
Characteristics of adventure as generated by practitioners and scholars in OAE include the following:
- Uncertainty of outcome (Hopkins & Putnam, 1993)
- Compelling tasks primarily concerned with interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships (Priest & Gass, 2005)
- A state of mind that begins with feelings of uncertainty about the outcome of a journey and always ends with feelings of enjoyment, satisfaction, or elation about the successful completion of that journey (see Colin Mortlock's Adventure Education and Outdoor Pursuits [1983])
- A search for excellence, an expression of human dignity, an act of the whole person. The concept of adventure implies not only action and intensity but also returning triumphantly, coming home, re-entry. This re-entry includes a period of telling, of piecing together, of sifting the meaning of the story (Nold, 1978).
Most agree that adventure involves uncertainty. Priest and Gass focus on the nurturing and social aspects of adventure, citing how people are changed both within themselves and in their relationships with those who experienced the adventure with them. Joseph Nold speaks of the coming back, the idea that no adventure is complete without the telling of the tale. This telling, and retelling, of the story evokes the archetypal adventure story, the encountering of unforeseen events of which the outcome is uncertain, and upon return, sharing the story with others. Think of one of the first great adventure stories, Homer's Odyssey, a recounting of the adventurous exploits of the Greek soldier Odysseus (known to the Romans as Ulysses), and how many times this tale or similar ones have been retold.
Defining Outdoor Adventure Education
Adventure has long played a critical role in human development, but only recently have adventure and outdoor experiences shifted from necessary or utilitarian to primarily recreational. Consider the risk and danger our ancestors faced in getting close enough to kill a wild animal with a spear. In many ways, as technology has allowed humans to gain greater advantage over their natural environment, the world has become a far safer place, with a greater assurance of securing food, at least for some. With the advent of mechanization, our relationship to risk has significantly evolved with most outdoor adventures usually not becoming matters of personal survival. Where we once accepted risk in order to survive, we now pursue risk in order to thrive—to feel as though we are making the most of our lives. During this shift in our perspective on risk, the field of OAE originated.
OAE has been defined in many ways, including all of the following:
- Direct, active, and engaging learning experiences that involve the whole person and have real consequences (Prouty, 2007)
- . . . education that focuses on the development of interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships while participating in outdoor activities that include attributes of risk and challenge (Wagstaff & Attarian, 2009, p. 15)
- . . . education that is conducted in a wilderness-like setting or through nature and physical skills development to promote interpersonal growth or enhance physical skills in outdoor pursuits (Gilbertson, Bates, McLaughlin, & Ewert, 2006, p. 8.)
Because it can be applied in a variety of settings and situations and because it remains true to the original concept of adventure, we use the following definition of OAE: A variety of teaching and learning activities and experiences usually involving a close interaction with an outdoor natural setting and containing elements of real or perceived danger or risk in which the outcome, although uncertain, can be influenced by the actions of the participants and circumstances.
Let's look more closely at our definition of OAE. First, in the teaching, learning, and experiencing that occur in OAE, education is of primary importance. Wagstaff and Attarian (2009), for example, suggest that OAE instructors serve three functions in the realm of adventure education: facilitating the experience, safeguarding the experience, and minimizing the impacts on the natural environment. Of course each of these functions involves making the experience as educational as possible for all participants, taking advantage of every opportunity to teach the hows, whens, and whys implicit in each experience. In a sense, OAE instructors often strive to explain the adventure activity in addition to actually doing the activity.
Second, note the (typically) close interaction with the outdoor environment. Although some climbing walls and rope course facilities are indoors, a natural setting serves as a key component in the education process for the vast majority of OAE programs—for reasons we shall explore later.
Third, in our definition and most others, OAE typically contains elements of real or perceived risk. Risk can be real and inherent to an activity, such as a rock fall in a rock-climbing area, or can be merely (mis)perceived by participants within a safe activity. That is, instructors can manage an adventure site to make activities seem risky when in fact there is a very small chance of actual injury or loss. One example is employing a top rope in rock climbing where there is little chance of rockfall and a competent person is belaying the climber. For the participant, it often seems quite risky and dangerous when, in reality, the activity is quite safe.
Fourth, in our definition of OAE, outcomes tend to be uncertain. Such factors as weather, terrain, participant abilities and attitudes, and equipment can make program outcomes quite unpredictable. Uncertainty plays an important role in adventure programs primarily because of what it can teach participants. Although often psychologically uncomfortable, uncertainty can force participants to confront their anxieties, analyze their decision-making abilities, and assess their physical, emotional, and leadership skills.
Of course the amount of risk involved in uncertain outcomes can be significantly influenced by the skills of the participants. Participants can use their intuition, training, personal abilities, and team resources to make good decisions and take effective action to deal with uncertain outcomes.
Circumstance and luck also play roles in uncertain outcomes. The ability to make accurate decisions tends to be largely affected by circumstance. Despite ambiguity inherent to many situations, the goal is always to gather as much information as possible, analyze the situation, make an informed and careful decision, and take the best possible action given the circumstances.
Learn more about Outdoor Adventure Education.
Impacts of technology in outdoor recreation and adventure
Technology plays an increasingly influential and important role in outdoor recreation and adventure. The last 10 years, in particular, have seen a virtual explosion of technological developments in the outdoors, ranging from clothes to equipment such as signaling devices and protective gear.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/120/169ph_Main.png
Technology plays an increasingly influential and important role in outdoor recreation and adventure. The last 10 years, in particular, have seen a virtual explosion of technological developments in the outdoors, ranging from clothes to equipment such as signaling devices and protective gear. There are five areas in which technology has played a significant role in the realm of outdoor and adventure recreation:
- access and transportation,
- comfort,
- safety,
- communication, and
- information.
Each of these areas has resulted in greater use of the outdoors, differing expectations, and changes in public policy.
For example, technology has increased access and transportation through improvements in overland travel such as snowmobiles and off-road vehicles (ORVs). These machines have allowed visitors to get further into remote areas faster and with less effort. Likewise, comfort in the outdoors has been substantially improved through lighter weight, more effective clothing, tents, boots, and so on. This reduced weight coupled with greater effectiveness has resulted in more people, within a greater age range and across ability levels, to get into extremely remote or challenging areas.
Technology has worked in two ways that relate to safety. First, improved technology has increased the level of safety available to both individuals and groups. By and large, equipment is stronger, lighter, and more versatile, though in some cases higher levels of skill and expertise is necessary to use it. For example, dive computers have essentially replaced dive tables for diving. Although reliable and extremely useful, they also require divers to understand how to use them with enough competence to capitalize on the safety features they provide.
Second, communication is the area experiencing the fastest technological growth. With the advent of GPS units, 36-mile radios, PLBs and EPIRBs (personal locator beacons and emergency position indicating radio beacons), satellite telephones, smart phone apps, and increased cellular coverage, technology now allows outdoor enthusiasts to know precisely where they are, how fast they are moving and in what direction, and how to signal for help—all at the press of a button. The potential danger of these technological advances lies in two areas. First, knowing what direction and exactly how far you need to go to reach a particular point might make you more likely to go for it, but there's no guarantee you will actually reach your destination. Ravines, canyons, mountains, steep slopes, avalanche areas, and severe weather may all conspire to make sure you don't get where you want to go. Second, technology sometimes does not work. Just as helicopters cannot always fly to your location, a GPS or handheld radio might not be in operation for a variety of reasons, such as dead batteries, remote location, or exposure to elements such as rain.
Historically, information was often obtained through word of mouth, asking the area ranger, or finding a map or brochure. Now, within the context of outdoor recreation and adventure, information is usually accessed via the Internet, automated telephone exchange, or guidebooks. Again, this ease and convenience of accessing information generally leads to increases in use, particularly in areas that have not seen much use because of their remote or difficult location.
This increased use, however, does not come without a price, namely in visitors finding themselves in situations far more challenging than their skill or knowledge levels can accommodate. Added to this, they are often in locations so remote that no one can easily get to them. Technology can also create a deceptive “bubble of safety.”
That is, when substituted for skill or expertise, technology can create an illusion of safety or security that allows people to become complacent, only to discover, perhaps at a critical moment, that no such safety mechanism exists (Ewert & Shultis, 1999). For example, an avalanche beacon can be a lifesaver, but no beacon ever prevented an avalanche from occurring, and if you are buried by one, your chances of survival are automatically decreased by 50 percent.
In sum, technology has contributed a number of benefits to OAE activities and participants. It has increased comfort and safety, improved access, enhanced communication, and enlarged the information base from which we make decisions. It has also been known to create illusions of safety and might create a different set of expectations in relation to outdoor settings. Underskilled participants can find themselves in situations that require search and rescue (SAR) or other forms of assistance from managing or government agencies. In such cases, technology serves to increase demands on the environment and land resources rather than decreasing them
Learn more about Outdoor Adventure Education.
What is Outdoor Adventure Education?
The English word adventure comes from the French term aventure, which evolved from the Latin term adventurus, which means simply “about to arrive” but which over time has come to connote an exciting event that contains elements of risk and/or danger and where the outcome is uncertain.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/120/5ph_Main.png
The English word adventure comes from the French term aventure, which evolved from the Latin term adventurus, which means simply “about to arrive” but which over time has come to connote an exciting event that contains elements of risk and/or danger and where the outcome is uncertain.
The term adventure is broad enough to cover any enterprise potentially fraught with risk, such as a business venture, major life undertaking, or even trying a new restaurant. But for our purposes in this book, and relative to OAE in general, adventure will imply a pursuit in an outdoor setting within an educational context.
Characteristics of adventure as generated by practitioners and scholars in OAE include the following:
- Uncertainty of outcome (Hopkins & Putnam, 1993)
- Compelling tasks primarily concerned with interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships (Priest & Gass, 2005)
- A state of mind that begins with feelings of uncertainty about the outcome of a journey and always ends with feelings of enjoyment, satisfaction, or elation about the successful completion of that journey (see Colin Mortlock's Adventure Education and Outdoor Pursuits [1983])
- A search for excellence, an expression of human dignity, an act of the whole person. The concept of adventure implies not only action and intensity but also returning triumphantly, coming home, re-entry. This re-entry includes a period of telling, of piecing together, of sifting the meaning of the story (Nold, 1978).
Most agree that adventure involves uncertainty. Priest and Gass focus on the nurturing and social aspects of adventure, citing how people are changed both within themselves and in their relationships with those who experienced the adventure with them. Joseph Nold speaks of the coming back, the idea that no adventure is complete without the telling of the tale. This telling, and retelling, of the story evokes the archetypal adventure story, the encountering of unforeseen events of which the outcome is uncertain, and upon return, sharing the story with others. Think of one of the first great adventure stories, Homer's Odyssey, a recounting of the adventurous exploits of the Greek soldier Odysseus (known to the Romans as Ulysses), and how many times this tale or similar ones have been retold.
Defining Outdoor Adventure Education
Adventure has long played a critical role in human development, but only recently have adventure and outdoor experiences shifted from necessary or utilitarian to primarily recreational. Consider the risk and danger our ancestors faced in getting close enough to kill a wild animal with a spear. In many ways, as technology has allowed humans to gain greater advantage over their natural environment, the world has become a far safer place, with a greater assurance of securing food, at least for some. With the advent of mechanization, our relationship to risk has significantly evolved with most outdoor adventures usually not becoming matters of personal survival. Where we once accepted risk in order to survive, we now pursue risk in order to thrive—to feel as though we are making the most of our lives. During this shift in our perspective on risk, the field of OAE originated.
OAE has been defined in many ways, including all of the following:
- Direct, active, and engaging learning experiences that involve the whole person and have real consequences (Prouty, 2007)
- . . . education that focuses on the development of interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships while participating in outdoor activities that include attributes of risk and challenge (Wagstaff & Attarian, 2009, p. 15)
- . . . education that is conducted in a wilderness-like setting or through nature and physical skills development to promote interpersonal growth or enhance physical skills in outdoor pursuits (Gilbertson, Bates, McLaughlin, & Ewert, 2006, p. 8.)
Because it can be applied in a variety of settings and situations and because it remains true to the original concept of adventure, we use the following definition of OAE: A variety of teaching and learning activities and experiences usually involving a close interaction with an outdoor natural setting and containing elements of real or perceived danger or risk in which the outcome, although uncertain, can be influenced by the actions of the participants and circumstances.
Let's look more closely at our definition of OAE. First, in the teaching, learning, and experiencing that occur in OAE, education is of primary importance. Wagstaff and Attarian (2009), for example, suggest that OAE instructors serve three functions in the realm of adventure education: facilitating the experience, safeguarding the experience, and minimizing the impacts on the natural environment. Of course each of these functions involves making the experience as educational as possible for all participants, taking advantage of every opportunity to teach the hows, whens, and whys implicit in each experience. In a sense, OAE instructors often strive to explain the adventure activity in addition to actually doing the activity.
Second, note the (typically) close interaction with the outdoor environment. Although some climbing walls and rope course facilities are indoors, a natural setting serves as a key component in the education process for the vast majority of OAE programs—for reasons we shall explore later.
Third, in our definition and most others, OAE typically contains elements of real or perceived risk. Risk can be real and inherent to an activity, such as a rock fall in a rock-climbing area, or can be merely (mis)perceived by participants within a safe activity. That is, instructors can manage an adventure site to make activities seem risky when in fact there is a very small chance of actual injury or loss. One example is employing a top rope in rock climbing where there is little chance of rockfall and a competent person is belaying the climber. For the participant, it often seems quite risky and dangerous when, in reality, the activity is quite safe.
Fourth, in our definition of OAE, outcomes tend to be uncertain. Such factors as weather, terrain, participant abilities and attitudes, and equipment can make program outcomes quite unpredictable. Uncertainty plays an important role in adventure programs primarily because of what it can teach participants. Although often psychologically uncomfortable, uncertainty can force participants to confront their anxieties, analyze their decision-making abilities, and assess their physical, emotional, and leadership skills.
Of course the amount of risk involved in uncertain outcomes can be significantly influenced by the skills of the participants. Participants can use their intuition, training, personal abilities, and team resources to make good decisions and take effective action to deal with uncertain outcomes.
Circumstance and luck also play roles in uncertain outcomes. The ability to make accurate decisions tends to be largely affected by circumstance. Despite ambiguity inherent to many situations, the goal is always to gather as much information as possible, analyze the situation, make an informed and careful decision, and take the best possible action given the circumstances.
Learn more about Outdoor Adventure Education.
Impacts of technology in outdoor recreation and adventure
Technology plays an increasingly influential and important role in outdoor recreation and adventure. The last 10 years, in particular, have seen a virtual explosion of technological developments in the outdoors, ranging from clothes to equipment such as signaling devices and protective gear.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/120/169ph_Main.png
Technology plays an increasingly influential and important role in outdoor recreation and adventure. The last 10 years, in particular, have seen a virtual explosion of technological developments in the outdoors, ranging from clothes to equipment such as signaling devices and protective gear. There are five areas in which technology has played a significant role in the realm of outdoor and adventure recreation:
- access and transportation,
- comfort,
- safety,
- communication, and
- information.
Each of these areas has resulted in greater use of the outdoors, differing expectations, and changes in public policy.
For example, technology has increased access and transportation through improvements in overland travel such as snowmobiles and off-road vehicles (ORVs). These machines have allowed visitors to get further into remote areas faster and with less effort. Likewise, comfort in the outdoors has been substantially improved through lighter weight, more effective clothing, tents, boots, and so on. This reduced weight coupled with greater effectiveness has resulted in more people, within a greater age range and across ability levels, to get into extremely remote or challenging areas.
Technology has worked in two ways that relate to safety. First, improved technology has increased the level of safety available to both individuals and groups. By and large, equipment is stronger, lighter, and more versatile, though in some cases higher levels of skill and expertise is necessary to use it. For example, dive computers have essentially replaced dive tables for diving. Although reliable and extremely useful, they also require divers to understand how to use them with enough competence to capitalize on the safety features they provide.
Second, communication is the area experiencing the fastest technological growth. With the advent of GPS units, 36-mile radios, PLBs and EPIRBs (personal locator beacons and emergency position indicating radio beacons), satellite telephones, smart phone apps, and increased cellular coverage, technology now allows outdoor enthusiasts to know precisely where they are, how fast they are moving and in what direction, and how to signal for help—all at the press of a button. The potential danger of these technological advances lies in two areas. First, knowing what direction and exactly how far you need to go to reach a particular point might make you more likely to go for it, but there's no guarantee you will actually reach your destination. Ravines, canyons, mountains, steep slopes, avalanche areas, and severe weather may all conspire to make sure you don't get where you want to go. Second, technology sometimes does not work. Just as helicopters cannot always fly to your location, a GPS or handheld radio might not be in operation for a variety of reasons, such as dead batteries, remote location, or exposure to elements such as rain.
Historically, information was often obtained through word of mouth, asking the area ranger, or finding a map or brochure. Now, within the context of outdoor recreation and adventure, information is usually accessed via the Internet, automated telephone exchange, or guidebooks. Again, this ease and convenience of accessing information generally leads to increases in use, particularly in areas that have not seen much use because of their remote or difficult location.
This increased use, however, does not come without a price, namely in visitors finding themselves in situations far more challenging than their skill or knowledge levels can accommodate. Added to this, they are often in locations so remote that no one can easily get to them. Technology can also create a deceptive “bubble of safety.”
That is, when substituted for skill or expertise, technology can create an illusion of safety or security that allows people to become complacent, only to discover, perhaps at a critical moment, that no such safety mechanism exists (Ewert & Shultis, 1999). For example, an avalanche beacon can be a lifesaver, but no beacon ever prevented an avalanche from occurring, and if you are buried by one, your chances of survival are automatically decreased by 50 percent.
In sum, technology has contributed a number of benefits to OAE activities and participants. It has increased comfort and safety, improved access, enhanced communication, and enlarged the information base from which we make decisions. It has also been known to create illusions of safety and might create a different set of expectations in relation to outdoor settings. Underskilled participants can find themselves in situations that require search and rescue (SAR) or other forms of assistance from managing or government agencies. In such cases, technology serves to increase demands on the environment and land resources rather than decreasing them
Learn more about Outdoor Adventure Education.
What is Outdoor Adventure Education?
The English word adventure comes from the French term aventure, which evolved from the Latin term adventurus, which means simply “about to arrive” but which over time has come to connote an exciting event that contains elements of risk and/or danger and where the outcome is uncertain.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/120/5ph_Main.png
The English word adventure comes from the French term aventure, which evolved from the Latin term adventurus, which means simply “about to arrive” but which over time has come to connote an exciting event that contains elements of risk and/or danger and where the outcome is uncertain.
The term adventure is broad enough to cover any enterprise potentially fraught with risk, such as a business venture, major life undertaking, or even trying a new restaurant. But for our purposes in this book, and relative to OAE in general, adventure will imply a pursuit in an outdoor setting within an educational context.
Characteristics of adventure as generated by practitioners and scholars in OAE include the following:
- Uncertainty of outcome (Hopkins & Putnam, 1993)
- Compelling tasks primarily concerned with interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships (Priest & Gass, 2005)
- A state of mind that begins with feelings of uncertainty about the outcome of a journey and always ends with feelings of enjoyment, satisfaction, or elation about the successful completion of that journey (see Colin Mortlock's Adventure Education and Outdoor Pursuits [1983])
- A search for excellence, an expression of human dignity, an act of the whole person. The concept of adventure implies not only action and intensity but also returning triumphantly, coming home, re-entry. This re-entry includes a period of telling, of piecing together, of sifting the meaning of the story (Nold, 1978).
Most agree that adventure involves uncertainty. Priest and Gass focus on the nurturing and social aspects of adventure, citing how people are changed both within themselves and in their relationships with those who experienced the adventure with them. Joseph Nold speaks of the coming back, the idea that no adventure is complete without the telling of the tale. This telling, and retelling, of the story evokes the archetypal adventure story, the encountering of unforeseen events of which the outcome is uncertain, and upon return, sharing the story with others. Think of one of the first great adventure stories, Homer's Odyssey, a recounting of the adventurous exploits of the Greek soldier Odysseus (known to the Romans as Ulysses), and how many times this tale or similar ones have been retold.
Defining Outdoor Adventure Education
Adventure has long played a critical role in human development, but only recently have adventure and outdoor experiences shifted from necessary or utilitarian to primarily recreational. Consider the risk and danger our ancestors faced in getting close enough to kill a wild animal with a spear. In many ways, as technology has allowed humans to gain greater advantage over their natural environment, the world has become a far safer place, with a greater assurance of securing food, at least for some. With the advent of mechanization, our relationship to risk has significantly evolved with most outdoor adventures usually not becoming matters of personal survival. Where we once accepted risk in order to survive, we now pursue risk in order to thrive—to feel as though we are making the most of our lives. During this shift in our perspective on risk, the field of OAE originated.
OAE has been defined in many ways, including all of the following:
- Direct, active, and engaging learning experiences that involve the whole person and have real consequences (Prouty, 2007)
- . . . education that focuses on the development of interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships while participating in outdoor activities that include attributes of risk and challenge (Wagstaff & Attarian, 2009, p. 15)
- . . . education that is conducted in a wilderness-like setting or through nature and physical skills development to promote interpersonal growth or enhance physical skills in outdoor pursuits (Gilbertson, Bates, McLaughlin, & Ewert, 2006, p. 8.)
Because it can be applied in a variety of settings and situations and because it remains true to the original concept of adventure, we use the following definition of OAE: A variety of teaching and learning activities and experiences usually involving a close interaction with an outdoor natural setting and containing elements of real or perceived danger or risk in which the outcome, although uncertain, can be influenced by the actions of the participants and circumstances.
Let's look more closely at our definition of OAE. First, in the teaching, learning, and experiencing that occur in OAE, education is of primary importance. Wagstaff and Attarian (2009), for example, suggest that OAE instructors serve three functions in the realm of adventure education: facilitating the experience, safeguarding the experience, and minimizing the impacts on the natural environment. Of course each of these functions involves making the experience as educational as possible for all participants, taking advantage of every opportunity to teach the hows, whens, and whys implicit in each experience. In a sense, OAE instructors often strive to explain the adventure activity in addition to actually doing the activity.
Second, note the (typically) close interaction with the outdoor environment. Although some climbing walls and rope course facilities are indoors, a natural setting serves as a key component in the education process for the vast majority of OAE programs—for reasons we shall explore later.
Third, in our definition and most others, OAE typically contains elements of real or perceived risk. Risk can be real and inherent to an activity, such as a rock fall in a rock-climbing area, or can be merely (mis)perceived by participants within a safe activity. That is, instructors can manage an adventure site to make activities seem risky when in fact there is a very small chance of actual injury or loss. One example is employing a top rope in rock climbing where there is little chance of rockfall and a competent person is belaying the climber. For the participant, it often seems quite risky and dangerous when, in reality, the activity is quite safe.
Fourth, in our definition of OAE, outcomes tend to be uncertain. Such factors as weather, terrain, participant abilities and attitudes, and equipment can make program outcomes quite unpredictable. Uncertainty plays an important role in adventure programs primarily because of what it can teach participants. Although often psychologically uncomfortable, uncertainty can force participants to confront their anxieties, analyze their decision-making abilities, and assess their physical, emotional, and leadership skills.
Of course the amount of risk involved in uncertain outcomes can be significantly influenced by the skills of the participants. Participants can use their intuition, training, personal abilities, and team resources to make good decisions and take effective action to deal with uncertain outcomes.
Circumstance and luck also play roles in uncertain outcomes. The ability to make accurate decisions tends to be largely affected by circumstance. Despite ambiguity inherent to many situations, the goal is always to gather as much information as possible, analyze the situation, make an informed and careful decision, and take the best possible action given the circumstances.
Learn more about Outdoor Adventure Education.
Impacts of technology in outdoor recreation and adventure
Technology plays an increasingly influential and important role in outdoor recreation and adventure. The last 10 years, in particular, have seen a virtual explosion of technological developments in the outdoors, ranging from clothes to equipment such as signaling devices and protective gear.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/120/169ph_Main.png
Technology plays an increasingly influential and important role in outdoor recreation and adventure. The last 10 years, in particular, have seen a virtual explosion of technological developments in the outdoors, ranging from clothes to equipment such as signaling devices and protective gear. There are five areas in which technology has played a significant role in the realm of outdoor and adventure recreation:
- access and transportation,
- comfort,
- safety,
- communication, and
- information.
Each of these areas has resulted in greater use of the outdoors, differing expectations, and changes in public policy.
For example, technology has increased access and transportation through improvements in overland travel such as snowmobiles and off-road vehicles (ORVs). These machines have allowed visitors to get further into remote areas faster and with less effort. Likewise, comfort in the outdoors has been substantially improved through lighter weight, more effective clothing, tents, boots, and so on. This reduced weight coupled with greater effectiveness has resulted in more people, within a greater age range and across ability levels, to get into extremely remote or challenging areas.
Technology has worked in two ways that relate to safety. First, improved technology has increased the level of safety available to both individuals and groups. By and large, equipment is stronger, lighter, and more versatile, though in some cases higher levels of skill and expertise is necessary to use it. For example, dive computers have essentially replaced dive tables for diving. Although reliable and extremely useful, they also require divers to understand how to use them with enough competence to capitalize on the safety features they provide.
Second, communication is the area experiencing the fastest technological growth. With the advent of GPS units, 36-mile radios, PLBs and EPIRBs (personal locator beacons and emergency position indicating radio beacons), satellite telephones, smart phone apps, and increased cellular coverage, technology now allows outdoor enthusiasts to know precisely where they are, how fast they are moving and in what direction, and how to signal for help—all at the press of a button. The potential danger of these technological advances lies in two areas. First, knowing what direction and exactly how far you need to go to reach a particular point might make you more likely to go for it, but there's no guarantee you will actually reach your destination. Ravines, canyons, mountains, steep slopes, avalanche areas, and severe weather may all conspire to make sure you don't get where you want to go. Second, technology sometimes does not work. Just as helicopters cannot always fly to your location, a GPS or handheld radio might not be in operation for a variety of reasons, such as dead batteries, remote location, or exposure to elements such as rain.
Historically, information was often obtained through word of mouth, asking the area ranger, or finding a map or brochure. Now, within the context of outdoor recreation and adventure, information is usually accessed via the Internet, automated telephone exchange, or guidebooks. Again, this ease and convenience of accessing information generally leads to increases in use, particularly in areas that have not seen much use because of their remote or difficult location.
This increased use, however, does not come without a price, namely in visitors finding themselves in situations far more challenging than their skill or knowledge levels can accommodate. Added to this, they are often in locations so remote that no one can easily get to them. Technology can also create a deceptive “bubble of safety.”
That is, when substituted for skill or expertise, technology can create an illusion of safety or security that allows people to become complacent, only to discover, perhaps at a critical moment, that no such safety mechanism exists (Ewert & Shultis, 1999). For example, an avalanche beacon can be a lifesaver, but no beacon ever prevented an avalanche from occurring, and if you are buried by one, your chances of survival are automatically decreased by 50 percent.
In sum, technology has contributed a number of benefits to OAE activities and participants. It has increased comfort and safety, improved access, enhanced communication, and enlarged the information base from which we make decisions. It has also been known to create illusions of safety and might create a different set of expectations in relation to outdoor settings. Underskilled participants can find themselves in situations that require search and rescue (SAR) or other forms of assistance from managing or government agencies. In such cases, technology serves to increase demands on the environment and land resources rather than decreasing them
Learn more about Outdoor Adventure Education.
What is Outdoor Adventure Education?
The English word adventure comes from the French term aventure, which evolved from the Latin term adventurus, which means simply “about to arrive” but which over time has come to connote an exciting event that contains elements of risk and/or danger and where the outcome is uncertain.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/120/5ph_Main.png
The English word adventure comes from the French term aventure, which evolved from the Latin term adventurus, which means simply “about to arrive” but which over time has come to connote an exciting event that contains elements of risk and/or danger and where the outcome is uncertain.
The term adventure is broad enough to cover any enterprise potentially fraught with risk, such as a business venture, major life undertaking, or even trying a new restaurant. But for our purposes in this book, and relative to OAE in general, adventure will imply a pursuit in an outdoor setting within an educational context.
Characteristics of adventure as generated by practitioners and scholars in OAE include the following:
- Uncertainty of outcome (Hopkins & Putnam, 1993)
- Compelling tasks primarily concerned with interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships (Priest & Gass, 2005)
- A state of mind that begins with feelings of uncertainty about the outcome of a journey and always ends with feelings of enjoyment, satisfaction, or elation about the successful completion of that journey (see Colin Mortlock's Adventure Education and Outdoor Pursuits [1983])
- A search for excellence, an expression of human dignity, an act of the whole person. The concept of adventure implies not only action and intensity but also returning triumphantly, coming home, re-entry. This re-entry includes a period of telling, of piecing together, of sifting the meaning of the story (Nold, 1978).
Most agree that adventure involves uncertainty. Priest and Gass focus on the nurturing and social aspects of adventure, citing how people are changed both within themselves and in their relationships with those who experienced the adventure with them. Joseph Nold speaks of the coming back, the idea that no adventure is complete without the telling of the tale. This telling, and retelling, of the story evokes the archetypal adventure story, the encountering of unforeseen events of which the outcome is uncertain, and upon return, sharing the story with others. Think of one of the first great adventure stories, Homer's Odyssey, a recounting of the adventurous exploits of the Greek soldier Odysseus (known to the Romans as Ulysses), and how many times this tale or similar ones have been retold.
Defining Outdoor Adventure Education
Adventure has long played a critical role in human development, but only recently have adventure and outdoor experiences shifted from necessary or utilitarian to primarily recreational. Consider the risk and danger our ancestors faced in getting close enough to kill a wild animal with a spear. In many ways, as technology has allowed humans to gain greater advantage over their natural environment, the world has become a far safer place, with a greater assurance of securing food, at least for some. With the advent of mechanization, our relationship to risk has significantly evolved with most outdoor adventures usually not becoming matters of personal survival. Where we once accepted risk in order to survive, we now pursue risk in order to thrive—to feel as though we are making the most of our lives. During this shift in our perspective on risk, the field of OAE originated.
OAE has been defined in many ways, including all of the following:
- Direct, active, and engaging learning experiences that involve the whole person and have real consequences (Prouty, 2007)
- . . . education that focuses on the development of interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships while participating in outdoor activities that include attributes of risk and challenge (Wagstaff & Attarian, 2009, p. 15)
- . . . education that is conducted in a wilderness-like setting or through nature and physical skills development to promote interpersonal growth or enhance physical skills in outdoor pursuits (Gilbertson, Bates, McLaughlin, & Ewert, 2006, p. 8.)
Because it can be applied in a variety of settings and situations and because it remains true to the original concept of adventure, we use the following definition of OAE: A variety of teaching and learning activities and experiences usually involving a close interaction with an outdoor natural setting and containing elements of real or perceived danger or risk in which the outcome, although uncertain, can be influenced by the actions of the participants and circumstances.
Let's look more closely at our definition of OAE. First, in the teaching, learning, and experiencing that occur in OAE, education is of primary importance. Wagstaff and Attarian (2009), for example, suggest that OAE instructors serve three functions in the realm of adventure education: facilitating the experience, safeguarding the experience, and minimizing the impacts on the natural environment. Of course each of these functions involves making the experience as educational as possible for all participants, taking advantage of every opportunity to teach the hows, whens, and whys implicit in each experience. In a sense, OAE instructors often strive to explain the adventure activity in addition to actually doing the activity.
Second, note the (typically) close interaction with the outdoor environment. Although some climbing walls and rope course facilities are indoors, a natural setting serves as a key component in the education process for the vast majority of OAE programs—for reasons we shall explore later.
Third, in our definition and most others, OAE typically contains elements of real or perceived risk. Risk can be real and inherent to an activity, such as a rock fall in a rock-climbing area, or can be merely (mis)perceived by participants within a safe activity. That is, instructors can manage an adventure site to make activities seem risky when in fact there is a very small chance of actual injury or loss. One example is employing a top rope in rock climbing where there is little chance of rockfall and a competent person is belaying the climber. For the participant, it often seems quite risky and dangerous when, in reality, the activity is quite safe.
Fourth, in our definition of OAE, outcomes tend to be uncertain. Such factors as weather, terrain, participant abilities and attitudes, and equipment can make program outcomes quite unpredictable. Uncertainty plays an important role in adventure programs primarily because of what it can teach participants. Although often psychologically uncomfortable, uncertainty can force participants to confront their anxieties, analyze their decision-making abilities, and assess their physical, emotional, and leadership skills.
Of course the amount of risk involved in uncertain outcomes can be significantly influenced by the skills of the participants. Participants can use their intuition, training, personal abilities, and team resources to make good decisions and take effective action to deal with uncertain outcomes.
Circumstance and luck also play roles in uncertain outcomes. The ability to make accurate decisions tends to be largely affected by circumstance. Despite ambiguity inherent to many situations, the goal is always to gather as much information as possible, analyze the situation, make an informed and careful decision, and take the best possible action given the circumstances.
Learn more about Outdoor Adventure Education.
Impacts of technology in outdoor recreation and adventure
Technology plays an increasingly influential and important role in outdoor recreation and adventure. The last 10 years, in particular, have seen a virtual explosion of technological developments in the outdoors, ranging from clothes to equipment such as signaling devices and protective gear.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/120/169ph_Main.png
Technology plays an increasingly influential and important role in outdoor recreation and adventure. The last 10 years, in particular, have seen a virtual explosion of technological developments in the outdoors, ranging from clothes to equipment such as signaling devices and protective gear. There are five areas in which technology has played a significant role in the realm of outdoor and adventure recreation:
- access and transportation,
- comfort,
- safety,
- communication, and
- information.
Each of these areas has resulted in greater use of the outdoors, differing expectations, and changes in public policy.
For example, technology has increased access and transportation through improvements in overland travel such as snowmobiles and off-road vehicles (ORVs). These machines have allowed visitors to get further into remote areas faster and with less effort. Likewise, comfort in the outdoors has been substantially improved through lighter weight, more effective clothing, tents, boots, and so on. This reduced weight coupled with greater effectiveness has resulted in more people, within a greater age range and across ability levels, to get into extremely remote or challenging areas.
Technology has worked in two ways that relate to safety. First, improved technology has increased the level of safety available to both individuals and groups. By and large, equipment is stronger, lighter, and more versatile, though in some cases higher levels of skill and expertise is necessary to use it. For example, dive computers have essentially replaced dive tables for diving. Although reliable and extremely useful, they also require divers to understand how to use them with enough competence to capitalize on the safety features they provide.
Second, communication is the area experiencing the fastest technological growth. With the advent of GPS units, 36-mile radios, PLBs and EPIRBs (personal locator beacons and emergency position indicating radio beacons), satellite telephones, smart phone apps, and increased cellular coverage, technology now allows outdoor enthusiasts to know precisely where they are, how fast they are moving and in what direction, and how to signal for help—all at the press of a button. The potential danger of these technological advances lies in two areas. First, knowing what direction and exactly how far you need to go to reach a particular point might make you more likely to go for it, but there's no guarantee you will actually reach your destination. Ravines, canyons, mountains, steep slopes, avalanche areas, and severe weather may all conspire to make sure you don't get where you want to go. Second, technology sometimes does not work. Just as helicopters cannot always fly to your location, a GPS or handheld radio might not be in operation for a variety of reasons, such as dead batteries, remote location, or exposure to elements such as rain.
Historically, information was often obtained through word of mouth, asking the area ranger, or finding a map or brochure. Now, within the context of outdoor recreation and adventure, information is usually accessed via the Internet, automated telephone exchange, or guidebooks. Again, this ease and convenience of accessing information generally leads to increases in use, particularly in areas that have not seen much use because of their remote or difficult location.
This increased use, however, does not come without a price, namely in visitors finding themselves in situations far more challenging than their skill or knowledge levels can accommodate. Added to this, they are often in locations so remote that no one can easily get to them. Technology can also create a deceptive “bubble of safety.”
That is, when substituted for skill or expertise, technology can create an illusion of safety or security that allows people to become complacent, only to discover, perhaps at a critical moment, that no such safety mechanism exists (Ewert & Shultis, 1999). For example, an avalanche beacon can be a lifesaver, but no beacon ever prevented an avalanche from occurring, and if you are buried by one, your chances of survival are automatically decreased by 50 percent.
In sum, technology has contributed a number of benefits to OAE activities and participants. It has increased comfort and safety, improved access, enhanced communication, and enlarged the information base from which we make decisions. It has also been known to create illusions of safety and might create a different set of expectations in relation to outdoor settings. Underskilled participants can find themselves in situations that require search and rescue (SAR) or other forms of assistance from managing or government agencies. In such cases, technology serves to increase demands on the environment and land resources rather than decreasing them
Learn more about Outdoor Adventure Education.
What is Outdoor Adventure Education?
The English word adventure comes from the French term aventure, which evolved from the Latin term adventurus, which means simply “about to arrive” but which over time has come to connote an exciting event that contains elements of risk and/or danger and where the outcome is uncertain.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/120/5ph_Main.png
The English word adventure comes from the French term aventure, which evolved from the Latin term adventurus, which means simply “about to arrive” but which over time has come to connote an exciting event that contains elements of risk and/or danger and where the outcome is uncertain.
The term adventure is broad enough to cover any enterprise potentially fraught with risk, such as a business venture, major life undertaking, or even trying a new restaurant. But for our purposes in this book, and relative to OAE in general, adventure will imply a pursuit in an outdoor setting within an educational context.
Characteristics of adventure as generated by practitioners and scholars in OAE include the following:
- Uncertainty of outcome (Hopkins & Putnam, 1993)
- Compelling tasks primarily concerned with interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships (Priest & Gass, 2005)
- A state of mind that begins with feelings of uncertainty about the outcome of a journey and always ends with feelings of enjoyment, satisfaction, or elation about the successful completion of that journey (see Colin Mortlock's Adventure Education and Outdoor Pursuits [1983])
- A search for excellence, an expression of human dignity, an act of the whole person. The concept of adventure implies not only action and intensity but also returning triumphantly, coming home, re-entry. This re-entry includes a period of telling, of piecing together, of sifting the meaning of the story (Nold, 1978).
Most agree that adventure involves uncertainty. Priest and Gass focus on the nurturing and social aspects of adventure, citing how people are changed both within themselves and in their relationships with those who experienced the adventure with them. Joseph Nold speaks of the coming back, the idea that no adventure is complete without the telling of the tale. This telling, and retelling, of the story evokes the archetypal adventure story, the encountering of unforeseen events of which the outcome is uncertain, and upon return, sharing the story with others. Think of one of the first great adventure stories, Homer's Odyssey, a recounting of the adventurous exploits of the Greek soldier Odysseus (known to the Romans as Ulysses), and how many times this tale or similar ones have been retold.
Defining Outdoor Adventure Education
Adventure has long played a critical role in human development, but only recently have adventure and outdoor experiences shifted from necessary or utilitarian to primarily recreational. Consider the risk and danger our ancestors faced in getting close enough to kill a wild animal with a spear. In many ways, as technology has allowed humans to gain greater advantage over their natural environment, the world has become a far safer place, with a greater assurance of securing food, at least for some. With the advent of mechanization, our relationship to risk has significantly evolved with most outdoor adventures usually not becoming matters of personal survival. Where we once accepted risk in order to survive, we now pursue risk in order to thrive—to feel as though we are making the most of our lives. During this shift in our perspective on risk, the field of OAE originated.
OAE has been defined in many ways, including all of the following:
- Direct, active, and engaging learning experiences that involve the whole person and have real consequences (Prouty, 2007)
- . . . education that focuses on the development of interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships while participating in outdoor activities that include attributes of risk and challenge (Wagstaff & Attarian, 2009, p. 15)
- . . . education that is conducted in a wilderness-like setting or through nature and physical skills development to promote interpersonal growth or enhance physical skills in outdoor pursuits (Gilbertson, Bates, McLaughlin, & Ewert, 2006, p. 8.)
Because it can be applied in a variety of settings and situations and because it remains true to the original concept of adventure, we use the following definition of OAE: A variety of teaching and learning activities and experiences usually involving a close interaction with an outdoor natural setting and containing elements of real or perceived danger or risk in which the outcome, although uncertain, can be influenced by the actions of the participants and circumstances.
Let's look more closely at our definition of OAE. First, in the teaching, learning, and experiencing that occur in OAE, education is of primary importance. Wagstaff and Attarian (2009), for example, suggest that OAE instructors serve three functions in the realm of adventure education: facilitating the experience, safeguarding the experience, and minimizing the impacts on the natural environment. Of course each of these functions involves making the experience as educational as possible for all participants, taking advantage of every opportunity to teach the hows, whens, and whys implicit in each experience. In a sense, OAE instructors often strive to explain the adventure activity in addition to actually doing the activity.
Second, note the (typically) close interaction with the outdoor environment. Although some climbing walls and rope course facilities are indoors, a natural setting serves as a key component in the education process for the vast majority of OAE programs—for reasons we shall explore later.
Third, in our definition and most others, OAE typically contains elements of real or perceived risk. Risk can be real and inherent to an activity, such as a rock fall in a rock-climbing area, or can be merely (mis)perceived by participants within a safe activity. That is, instructors can manage an adventure site to make activities seem risky when in fact there is a very small chance of actual injury or loss. One example is employing a top rope in rock climbing where there is little chance of rockfall and a competent person is belaying the climber. For the participant, it often seems quite risky and dangerous when, in reality, the activity is quite safe.
Fourth, in our definition of OAE, outcomes tend to be uncertain. Such factors as weather, terrain, participant abilities and attitudes, and equipment can make program outcomes quite unpredictable. Uncertainty plays an important role in adventure programs primarily because of what it can teach participants. Although often psychologically uncomfortable, uncertainty can force participants to confront their anxieties, analyze their decision-making abilities, and assess their physical, emotional, and leadership skills.
Of course the amount of risk involved in uncertain outcomes can be significantly influenced by the skills of the participants. Participants can use their intuition, training, personal abilities, and team resources to make good decisions and take effective action to deal with uncertain outcomes.
Circumstance and luck also play roles in uncertain outcomes. The ability to make accurate decisions tends to be largely affected by circumstance. Despite ambiguity inherent to many situations, the goal is always to gather as much information as possible, analyze the situation, make an informed and careful decision, and take the best possible action given the circumstances.
Learn more about Outdoor Adventure Education.
Impacts of technology in outdoor recreation and adventure
Technology plays an increasingly influential and important role in outdoor recreation and adventure. The last 10 years, in particular, have seen a virtual explosion of technological developments in the outdoors, ranging from clothes to equipment such as signaling devices and protective gear.
http://www.humankinetics.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/120/169ph_Main.png
Technology plays an increasingly influential and important role in outdoor recreation and adventure. The last 10 years, in particular, have seen a virtual explosion of technological developments in the outdoors, ranging from clothes to equipment such as signaling devices and protective gear. There are five areas in which technology has played a significant role in the realm of outdoor and adventure recreation:
- access and transportation,
- comfort,
- safety,
- communication, and
- information.
Each of these areas has resulted in greater use of the outdoors, differing expectations, and changes in public policy.
For example, technology has increased access and transportation through improvements in overland travel such as snowmobiles and off-road vehicles (ORVs). These machines have allowed visitors to get further into remote areas faster and with less effort. Likewise, comfort in the outdoors has been substantially improved through lighter weight, more effective clothing, tents, boots, and so on. This reduced weight coupled with greater effectiveness has resulted in more people, within a greater age range and across ability levels, to get into extremely remote or challenging areas.
Technology has worked in two ways that relate to safety. First, improved technology has increased the level of safety available to both individuals and groups. By and large, equipment is stronger, lighter, and more versatile, though in some cases higher levels of skill and expertise is necessary to use it. For example, dive computers have essentially replaced dive tables for diving. Although reliable and extremely useful, they also require divers to understand how to use them with enough competence to capitalize on the safety features they provide.
Second, communication is the area experiencing the fastest technological growth. With the advent of GPS units, 36-mile radios, PLBs and EPIRBs (personal locator beacons and emergency position indicating radio beacons), satellite telephones, smart phone apps, and increased cellular coverage, technology now allows outdoor enthusiasts to know precisely where they are, how fast they are moving and in what direction, and how to signal for help—all at the press of a button. The potential danger of these technological advances lies in two areas. First, knowing what direction and exactly how far you need to go to reach a particular point might make you more likely to go for it, but there's no guarantee you will actually reach your destination. Ravines, canyons, mountains, steep slopes, avalanche areas, and severe weather may all conspire to make sure you don't get where you want to go. Second, technology sometimes does not work. Just as helicopters cannot always fly to your location, a GPS or handheld radio might not be in operation for a variety of reasons, such as dead batteries, remote location, or exposure to elements such as rain.
Historically, information was often obtained through word of mouth, asking the area ranger, or finding a map or brochure. Now, within the context of outdoor recreation and adventure, information is usually accessed via the Internet, automated telephone exchange, or guidebooks. Again, this ease and convenience of accessing information generally leads to increases in use, particularly in areas that have not seen much use because of their remote or difficult location.
This increased use, however, does not come without a price, namely in visitors finding themselves in situations far more challenging than their skill or knowledge levels can accommodate. Added to this, they are often in locations so remote that no one can easily get to them. Technology can also create a deceptive “bubble of safety.”
That is, when substituted for skill or expertise, technology can create an illusion of safety or security that allows people to become complacent, only to discover, perhaps at a critical moment, that no such safety mechanism exists (Ewert & Shultis, 1999). For example, an avalanche beacon can be a lifesaver, but no beacon ever prevented an avalanche from occurring, and if you are buried by one, your chances of survival are automatically decreased by 50 percent.
In sum, technology has contributed a number of benefits to OAE activities and participants. It has increased comfort and safety, improved access, enhanced communication, and enlarged the information base from which we make decisions. It has also been known to create illusions of safety and might create a different set of expectations in relation to outdoor settings. Underskilled participants can find themselves in situations that require search and rescue (SAR) or other forms of assistance from managing or government agencies. In such cases, technology serves to increase demands on the environment and land resources rather than decreasing them
Learn more about Outdoor Adventure Education.
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