Arts-Based Education in Outdoor Learning. Sport and Wellbeing Press, Preston, UK. ISBN: 978-0-9955744-1-0

Abstract

This innovative volume for Outdoor Learning comprises 40 chapters of artworks and discussion, prompting critical thinking and reflection on issues in society, from an Outdoor perspective or with Outdoor motives at their core. From local to global concerns, the range of ‘issues’ chosen were put to work as stimuli for the art that would emerge, and the learning to take place, over the course of an academic year. Topics include, among others; environmental damage and pollution, impacts of modern lifestyle, personal challenge on expeditions, outdoor fashion, personal identity and the outdoors, and human attitudes on life - from extinction to rebirth.

The chapters are from a university module called The Outdoor Image. Adopting an arts-based pedagogy has allowed these students to explore their thoughts and present their ideas in a vibrant and engaging way, which they ably and confidently demonstrate in their art and in their writing. There are several contributions early in the volume which set the scene and explore some aspects of aesthetic theory, helping to establish a context for the chapters that follow. The volume closes with a chapter of ‘student voices’ helping to impart and confirm the pedagogical mission of this work and the impacts that this opportunity for art-based learning has had in their education.