Loynes, Christopher
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9779-7954
(2014)
The legacy of the use of maps in outdoor education: breaking the link between maps and navigation and the experience of place.
In: RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2014: Geographies of co-production, 26-29 August 2014, London, UK.
(Unpublished)
Full text not available from this repository.
Abstract
This paper starts from two premises. The first is that embedded in all outdoor activities are a set of values that reflect the cultural conditions of the time in which the activity was first developed for educational purposes. This paper considers what, in relation to navigation, these values may be and asks whether and in what way these values are present today in the same activity and what the alternatives might be if maps and compasses were not used. The second premise is that it is worth considering how best to structure outdoor activities in order to fully develop their potential for environmental education. I suggest that the values embedded in the traditional approach to navigation were not intended for environmental education purposes, may not readily be adapted to these purposes and may even be counter-productive in their perhaps unwitting support of values that are contradictory to environmental education’s potential contribution to education for sustainability. The results of an empirical study that explored the different experiences elicited by navigating with and without map and compass are discussed. Those with maps objectified the landscape and treated the activity as a task. Those without entered into a relationship with the landscape and constructed experiences. The author suggests two benefits of these findings for environmental education. Approaches that remove the mediating tools that distance people from place create richer starting points for an environmental education that seeks to promote relational and sustainable values. Removing the tools, and the values attached to them through ritualised practices, encourages a shift in human nature relations that is of itself valuable to education for sustainability.
| Item Type: | Conference or Workshop Item (Lecture) |
|---|---|
| Related URL(s): | |
| Departments: | Academic Departments > Science, Natural Resources & Outdoor Studies (SNROS) > Outdoor Studies |
| Depositing User: | Christopher Loynes |
| Date Deposited: | 22 Jun 2016 14:00 |
| Last Modified: | 12 Jan 2024 13:00 |
| URI: | https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/2262 |
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