Common Roots

From the beginnings of European colonisation, Aotearoa New Zealand was framed as a natural paradise; a place to live in harmony with nature (Mitchell, Reference Mitchell2002; Park, Reference Park1995). The romanticism that underpinned the worldview of the colonists was present in early formal education through nature clubs and nature studies in the late 1800s. According to Lynch (Reference Lynch2006), nature study was initially a part of primary schooling as a precursor to learning about agriculture and forestry, and as ‘an indirect means of inculcating Christianity’ (p. 23). This followed a trend to take children outside of the classroom, which developed first in the United States and spread to Britain, Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand around the same time. In 1904, the primary school syllabus cemented out-of-classroom nature studies into widespread teaching practice and ‘From the ages of 5 to 14, children collected specimens of leaves and seeds, observed seasonal changes, and produced art, prose and verse to [quoting the Education Board] “applaud the wonders and beauties of nature”’ (Lynch, Reference Lynch2006, p. 24). Such was the perceived value of nature study at this time that specialists were appointed to assist teachers.

By the early 20th century, the majority of the population in Aotearoa New Zealand was located in urban centres, and concerns were raised about urban corruption and the loss of the hardy pioneering spirit (Statistics New Zealand, 2008). In 1923, prominent educationalist Shelley wrote that children ‘should not be educated in town . . . I do not think you realise how destructive it is’ (Goodyear, as cited in Statistics New Zealand, 2008). These sentiments underpinned the progressive development of nature study outings in primary schools through the 1920s and 1930s, although the influence of individual passionate teachers was a key driving force on the amount of practical nature study that actually occurred (Lynch, Reference Lynch2006, p. 25). Given this trend, it was no surprise that the 1937 Syllabus of Instruction for Public Schools advanced the place of learning in the outdoors in geography, science, and nature study (Stothart, as cited in Boyes, Reference Boyes, Irwin, Straker and Hill2012).

Out-of-school excursions for nature studies in post-primary education was initially linked to biology and geography, but the advent of the World War II saw a shift in the focus of outdoor experiences to encompass activities that encouraged physical fitness and a more active engagement with the outdoors. From 1942, school camping became a feature of outdoor learning, and according to Stothart (as cited in Boyes, Reference Boyes, Irwin, Straker and Hill2012, p. 28), 7,000 students participated in school camps in that year alone. There was by now an intriguing weaving together of subject matter; for example, geography trips to the mountains were embellished by skiing (Lynch, Reference Lynch2006) and there was a trend in school trips to visit well-known tourist destinations. By the 1950s, the increasing engagement in physical activities as well as nature studies in out-of-school teaching was highlighted by the appointment of specialist teachers in both subject areas. However, in the years that followed, the increasing engagement with practicality and physicality in the outdoors, coupled with a poor alignment with traditional school subjects, saw nature studies struggle to retain a presence in the formal curriculum. Nature study was eventually replaced by elementary science in the formal curriculum for primary schools in the late 1950s (Lynch, Reference Lynch2006).

The 1960s and 1970s saw environmental education and outdoor education closely aligned. For example, according to Lynch (Reference Lynch2006):

In 1978, District Advisor Lonsdale proposed a syllabus for outdoor education that had three main areas: environmental education, outdoor pursuits, and aspects of the curriculum in the outdoors. His concern lay in offering education that could help people come to terms with their environment and look beyond the materialistic developments of the 20th century (Lonsdale, Reference Lonsdale1978). Yet, by the early 1980s, Lynch (Reference Lynch2006) noted that references to environmental education within outdoor education rapidly diminished as interest in outdoor pursuits increased. This is not to say that environmental education was not occurring in outdoor education, but that pursuits were more prominent — especially so in the marketing of programs. For example, during the 1980s and 1990s, although the Sir Edmund Hillary Outdoor Pursuits Centre had three main goals for student learning that included enhancing knowledge about the conservation and preservation of the natural environment, marketing images tended to frame learning around adventurous activities.

The Discourse of Environmental Education and Education for Sustainability

As Palmer (Reference Palmer1998, p. 5) discusses, the term ‘environmental education’, while first used in the 1940s, did not become popular until the 1960s, paralleling changes in the political landscape that reflected a growing concern for human impact on the environment. Since then, many books, such as Small is Beautiful (Schumacher, Reference Schumacher1974), and academic papers such as the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (UNESCO, 2004) have addressed economic, socio-cultural and environmental issues, and called for urgent action to address the negative impacts caused by over-population, consumerism and pollution. While environmental education has traditionally focused on scientific and ecological studies of the natural environment, as well as conservation issues, in the past two decades there has been a trend towards integrating more social, political, and economic concerns (Eames et al., Reference Eames, Cowie and Bolstad2008). This has led to a shift from teaching the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to protect the environment towards encouraging a more reflective and critical stance that challenges normative approaches to teaching and learning (Ministry of Education, 1999). To help clarify this trend, some environmental education has become more commonly referred to as education for sustainability (EfS), where the key goals of sustainability are defined as living within ecological limits, achieving social justice, and fostering economic and social progress while developing a quality of life for all (Ministry of Education, 2009, pp. 70–71).

However, the term ‘sustainability’ is highly contentious (Senge, Lichtenstein, Kaeufer, Bradbury, & Carroll, Reference Senge, Lichtenstein, Kaeufer, Bradbury and Carroll2007), and this is reflected in the way the term is used within different contexts; Chapman (Reference Chapman2004) asserts there are as many as 300 definitions of sustainability. This is problematic, for in education, sustainability is about the exploration of economic and social development in the context of environmental and social justice, an interpretation that can be in opposition to other definitions, such as sustainable economic growth. At other times, the term ‘sustainability’ has been used so often and so broadly that meaning and relevance is diluted. The contested nature of sustainability within education has supported the rise of place-based education (Gruenewald, Reference Gruenewald2005, Reference Gruenewald2008), which has gained some traction in Aotearoa New Zealand (see, e.g., Brown, Reference Brown2012).

Currently within Aotearoa New Zealand, there appears to be no single clear version of, or vision for, environmental education. In our experience, some environmental education has links to critical social and political agendas, but much has remained focused on ecological science, with a developing trend focusing on place and community. This breadth provides ample opportunity for environmental education within outdoor education contexts.

The Discourse of Outdoor Education

In the 1970s, outdoor education expanded, and in 1974 a national conference on outdoor education was held at Wallis House, where a broad and encompassing definition of outdoor education was presented:

During the 1970s, however, New Zealanders became increasingly aware of the way global issues affected them. The oil shock in 1979 certainly drew into focus the dependence on petroleum products, to be followed by increased concerns about issues such as poverty and famine, acid rain, nuclear testing and ozone depletion. Increases in public debt, coupled with substantial increases in the cost of government services, led to closer scrutiny of how money was spent in schools. Among other things, this resulted in a critical evaluation of the value of taking children out of schools on trips and camps. Outdoor educators were required to provide justification for their programs, which highlighted the emerging and increasingly competing philosophical strands within outdoor education. Although some argued outdoor education was any activity that occurred outside the classroom, others interpreted outdoor education as outdoor pursuit activities that occurred in (and possibly enhanced an understanding of) natural environments, while others saw outdoor education as environmental education. Lynch cites the recollections of Joe Hughes, then a school inspector with national responsibility for outdoor education:

Given this diverse range of competing perspectives, it is not surprising the overarching Wallis House definition did not suit all programs. With increased scrutiny, outdoor educators began to differentiate the purpose of their programs more acutely, which created a proliferation of terms, each of which tried to promote a clearer purpose. Lynch (Reference Lynch2006) maintains that this semantic confusion became increasingly problematic since outdoor education became increasingly associated with outdoor pursuits, eventually leading the then Director General of Education to formally launch the term ‘Education Outside the Classroom’ (EOTC) in 1981. This term created a conceptual structure under which out-of-school activities could be used to enhance learning across the curriculum, while still including pursuit-based outdoor education (Lynch, Reference Lynch2006, p. 157). A participant in Straker's (2014) research who had been a geography and outdoor education teacher noted that ‘when EOTC came into the vernacular it certainly gave some clarity — in the sense that it captured a lot of what teachers like myself were doing’.

However, because EOTC recognised such diverse opportunities to learn, Boyes (Reference Boyes, Irwin, Straker and Hill2012) notes that this has sometimes resulted in ‘the dilution of the pervasiveness of the context of the natural environment’ (p. 31). He suggests this has marginalised elements of environmental education and resulted in nebulous environmental goals. Furthermore, the launch of EOTC did not alleviate the tensions that had emerged between the various strands of outdoor education described above, tensions that were present in other countries as well. For example, Scottish researcher Nicol (Reference Nicol2002) suggests that many authors writing about outdoor education privilege aspects of personal and social growth over environmental education when using the term ‘outdoor education’. This is supported in Hattie, Marsh, Neill, and Richards’ (Reference Hattie, Marsh, Neill and Richards1997) meta-analysis of outdoor education, which identified 39 outcomes relating to personal and social growth, but only one relating to the outdoor environment. This attention to personal and social growth eventually led to questioning the role of outdoor education approaches that promoted a competitive approach to using the environment, and resulted in some environmental educators in Aotearoa New Zealand disentangling them from outdoor education. For example, an interview undertaken by Irwin (Reference Irwin2010) recalls a key example of tension between environmental education and outdoor education:

In an effort to untangle these contested discourses, Boyes (Reference Boyes2000) suggested there remain two general perspectives that dominate outdoor education. The first perspective is EOTC as curriculum enrichment activities across all subject areas; and the second is outdoor education as adventure education with a subtext of environmental education (Boyes, Reference Boyes2000), that sees a number of activities (such as climbing and kayaking) as stable features of Aotearoa New Zealand interpretations (Payne, Reference Payne2002). More recently, Boyes (Reference Boyes, Irwin, Straker and Hill2012) notes that over the past two to three decades, the practices of challenge and adventure inherent in adventure education have tended to swamp the subtext of environmental learning that was earlier present.

The EOTC perspective of outdoor education encompasses the breadth of curriculum characteristic of the historical initiative of taking students outside the classroom to study topics related to nature. In this way, EOTC can be regarded as a teaching methodology. Boyes (Reference Boyes2000) maintains that it was the intent of the now Ministry of Education to encourage this perspective, and to refocus outdoor education back to the wider teaching and learning premises in the broadest sense to ensure the credibility of all learning opportunities outside of the classroom (Abbott, as cited in Boyes, Reference Boyes2000). The EOTC Guidelines – Bringing the Curriculum Alive (2009) ‘support the direction and contribute to the breadth of learning described by the national curriculum’ (p. 3). This document provides a framework for approaching teaching beyond the classroom and issues such as ‘sustainability, citizenship, enterprise, and globalisation’ (p. 8). Outdoor education is contextualised within this framework.

Outdoor education is currently one of seven key areas of learning in Health and Physical education in the New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007). There are four underlying concepts, including hauora, attitudes and values, the socio-ecological perspective, and health promotion, with an overriding goal being the promotion of wellbeing. This wellbeing extends beyond self to encompass ‘the well-being of those around them, of their communities, of their environments (including natural environments), and of the wider society’ (Ministry of Education, 2010, para. 3). One key achievement objective that further adds to the link with environmental education is embedded in the ‘healthy communities and environments’ strand, which states ‘students should contribute to healthy communities and environments by taking responsible and critical action’ (Ministry of Education, 2010, para. 6). In order to do that, students are encouraged to develop an understanding of lifestyle and economic, social, cultural, political and environmental factors, and take critical action to promote the wellbeing of New Zealanders. The curriculum document recommends that this can be achieved by building resilience, strengthening self-worth, and engaging in responsible decision making.

Exacerbating the problem of duality between EOTC and outdoor education is the ad-hoc way that outdoor education and EOTC have developed. There has not been a consistent approach, method, or practice, and the two perspectives described by Boyes (Reference Boyes2000) are not always distinct in every situation. For example, a school camp might include aspects of adventurous activities as well as study in other curriculum areas. Lynch (Reference Lynch1999) suggests the history and development of outdoor education in this country is characterised by a variety of practices, local enterprise, self-help and cooperation. Boyes (Reference Boyes2000) adds further uncertainty to the practice with his assessment that an unacknowledged theoretical base also contributes to confusion about the defining characteristics of outdoor education.

Different Directions

It is our contention that the increasing awareness of environmental issues arising in the late 1970s and 1980s, coupled with a shift toward the pursuit activities increasingly undertaken in outdoor education over that same timeframe, reduced the synergy that had previously existed between environmental education and outdoor education. For example, several participants interviewed by Irwin (Reference Irwin2010) maintained that environmental educators in particular were disenfranchised by the lack of depth applied to environmental education in the context of outdoor education through this period, and envisaged a stronger and more critically focused environmental education agenda to be delivered in schools. However, we have observed that many outdoor education programs still retained elements of conservation, learning about natural environments, and environmental care codes; suggesting historical models of environmental education within outdoor education were maintained by some practitioners.

A key event that highlighted the contested underpinnings of environmental education and outdoor education occurred in January 1981, when a conference (called ‘Environmental Education across the Curriculum’) was convened at Lopdell House in Auckland by the Department of Education and the Commission for the Environment. This conference helped create a foundation for environmental education in schools. A set of aims developed at the conference included:

1. 1. Develop an awareness of and sensitivity to the total environment;

2. 2. Develop a basic understanding of the total environment, particularly the interrelationship of people and environment;

3. 3. Develop practical, personal, social and valuing skills necessary for investigating the total environment and resolving environmental issues;

4. 4. Clarify their values and develop a personal code of behaviour towards, and life-long concern for, the environment;

5. 5. Make informed decisions about the environment by considering alternatives based on ecological, political, economic, social, aesthetic and other relevant factors;

6. 6. Become motivated for active participation in environmental management, including both protection and improvement;

7. 7. Create and respond to opportunities to be actively involved in working towards the resolution of environmental issues [emphasis in original] (Scott, Reference Scott1984, p. i).

These aims clearly signal an emerging engagement with sociological aspects of human-nature relationships that had not been present in the mainstream interpretations of environmental education (the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to protect the environment) that had been incorporated into outdoor education. Since this time, and particularly in the past two decades, the trend towards integrating more social, political and economic concerns into environmental education has increased (Eames et al., Reference Eames, Cowie and Bolstad2008).

In Aotearoa New Zealand, such environmental education as described by Eames et al. (Reference Eames, Cowie and Bolstad2008) is becoming more commonly referred to as ‘Education for Sustainability’ (EfS), with key goals of living within environmental limits, achieving social justice, and fostering economic and social progress while developing a quality of life for all (Ministry of Education, 2009). Thus, experiences and activities in the outdoors that do not consider the wider impacts of society have little in common with current conceptions of EfS. Irwin (Reference Irwin2010) maintains it is highly likely that the emerging EfS began to distance environmental education from outdoor education, because while practices of environmental care and conservation blend easily with outdoor education, assuming a natural synergy between EfS and outdoor education is problematic. This is because outdoor education should be considered part of the dominant paradigm with content and pedagogy that likely normalises the dominant world view much of the time (Irwin, Reference Irwin2010). The problem is that EfS within an outdoor education context will be co-opted to the dominant perspective; described by Marcuse (as cited by Jickling, Reference Jickling2004, p. 12) as ‘flattening out of the antagonism between culture and social reality through the obliteration of the oppositional, alien, and transcendent elements’. For example, the acceptance of pursuits as central within outdoor education obscures the paradoxes that arise (such as long distance travel and conquering nature) that become apparent with the application of a socio ecological framework underpinning EfS.

In addition, there was also a shift to a more technical focus within outdoor education. This was furthered indirectly by the Education Act 1989, which promoted the development of a national framework for qualifications (New Zealand Qualifications Authority, 2005). Part of that initiative was to forge closer connections between education and industry, which resulted in the formation of Industry Training Organisations (ITOs). The ITOs were required to standardise vocational qualifications and break them down into units that would become the building blocks of the National Qualifications Framework (NQF). These unit standards contain very specific learning outcomes and competency-based assessments, and in the recreation domain, addressed technical skill acquisition and risk management associated with recreational pursuits, in line with the needs of industry to quantify the skills of employees.

These vocationally focused unit standards were widely adopted for assessment in senior high school (Years 11–13) outdoor education. This was because the Physical Education achievement standards provided by the Ministry of Education offered little scope for assessment in outdoor education and the ITO's unit standards initially attracted government funding to providers to encourage uptake. However, according to Jones (Reference Jones2004), the adoption of unit standards to assess outdoor education undermined the breadth of the subject as defined by curriculum. This was because assessment of the prescriptive unit standards became the primary focus of teaching, as revealed by one of Straker's (Reference Straker2014) interview participants, who noted, ‘You don't want to be, but you are directed by assessment.’

In a parallel process, the focus of assessment on technical skills in senior high school required teachers to gain vocational qualifications to support both assessor requirements of the unit standards and to meet health and safety requirements. The key providers of the relevant vocational qualifications have, ironically, not been an ITO, but rather the New Zealand Outdoor Instructors Association (NZOIA) and the New Zealand Mountain Safety Council (NZMSC). Both frameworks are based around pursuit activities (such as rock climbing, abseiling, tramping, caving, white water kayaking, and alpinism), and discourse produced by both organisations is strongly focused on risk and safety. The qualifications framework of NZOIA, in particular, has become the default standard and has been actively promoted by the organisation. For example, in a letter to schools, the Chief Executive of NZOIA warned principals:

As Straker notes, this attention by NZOIA and the NZMSC contributed to the normalisation of risk and challenge as being necessary for outdoor education (Straker, Reference Straker2014, p. 67), and was justified within curriculum as personal development. However, recent multiple fatality accidents at the Sir Edmund Hillary Outdoor Pursuit Centre (SEHOPC; seven fatalities in 2008) and the Taranaki Outdoor Pursuits and Education Centre (four fatalities in 2012) have shaken the sector. While these accidents have undoubtedly contributed to increased safety standards and legislative compliance that has maintained focus on adventure aspects of outdoor education, other voices are more critical. For example, Spotswood College principal Mark Bowden has observed there was now a great need to publicly discuss the issues surrounding outdoor education in schools (as cited in McMurray & Flemming, Reference McMurray and Flemming2013). The accident at SEHOPC (one of the country's oldest and largest outdoor education centres) resulted in the significant changes discussed later in the article. Although these accidents were politicised, the influence of politics in both environmental education and outdoor education was nothing new.

Political Influences

As established in earlier discussion, the key difference between environmental education and EfS in Aotearoa New Zealand has been the move toward critically thinking about ways to instigate changes in the way we live. However, this action has not always found resonance with conservative governments. For example, under the three-term Labour–Greens coalition government from 1999 to 2008, EfS gained traction, with significant funding for an environmental education advisory service and Enviroschools. However, the incoming National-Act-Māori Party coalition government of 2009 announced cuts to the environmental education advisory service and Enviroschools in their 2009 budget (New Zealand Association of Environmental Education, 2009); although Enviroschools funding was later reinstated as part of a confidence and supply agreement with the Greens. This inconsistent governmental support for these services has resulted in mixed messages emanating about the importance of EfS, and also highlights the neo-liberal agenda relating to growth and development.

From the late 1980s, education in Aotearoa New Zealand was transformed by neo-liberal policies that promoted economic efficiency, business style competitive strategies, and centralised forms of control and accountability (Codd, Reference Codd2005). Neo-liberal politics rescinded progressive forms of education, instead promoting standardised testing, individualism, self-interest, and consumerism (Kincheloe, Reference Kincheloe, McLaren and Kincheloe2007). As curriculum was developed through this period, curriculum documents became progressively more ideologically focused (Chapman, Reference Chapman2011) towards preparing students to compete for work in the international economy. In schools these changes promoted teaching and assessment strategies that led to a reliance on measurable outcomes and a narrowing of content (synonymous with unit standards), and less attention given to the processes of thinking and learning (Codd, Reference Codd2005). Hill (Reference Hill2011) and Boyes (Reference Boyes, Irwin, Straker and Hill2012) describe these neo-liberal influences as significant in shaping outdoor education from that time as small units of learning that were easily measured and were valued ahead of broad-based holistic knowledge.

Since 1999, the New Zealand Health and Physical Education Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2010) has signalled a philosophical move towards EfS because it contains the underlying socio-ecological perspective that is intended to enable ‘physical educators to relate practices to the power structures and social economic forces underlying wider society’ (Culpan, as cited in Boyes, Reference Boyes2000, pp. 82–83). But the model of outdoor education encouraged through assessment using unit standards cannot easily support this. This is because the narrow assessment focus can limit holistic and integrated learning associated with education for sustainability (Boyes, Reference Boyes2000; Henderson, Reference Henderson1996; Martin, Reference Martin2004).

Thus, the developments shifting outdoor education and EfS apart are also highly political, for while parts of the curriculum signalled a focus on sustainability, the politics of the era relating to secondary schooling in particular suggests a much more managerial approach to teaching that discouraged anything but clear performance outcomes related to assessment. This has disadvantaged holistic approaches to learning and impacted on the way teachers perceive the purpose of outdoor education. For example, Zink and Boyes (Reference Zink and Boyes2006) concluded that generally, teachers ‘did not see the outcomes of cultural and ethnic understanding or environmental understanding to be as important as the skill and personal development goals’ (p. 20). This situation led one prominent environmental and outdoor education researcher and academic interviewed by Irwin (Reference Irwin2010) to comment:

The next section looks to find evidence of such work and argues that interpretations of outdoor education that have incorporated threads of sustainability and environmental education are gaining in popularity.

A Re-engagement of Outdoor Education and Environmental Education

The development of the resource Environmental Education – A Source Book for Teachers (Scott, Reference Scott1984), published by the Commission for the Environment, was a significant development for environmental educators in Aotearoa New Zealand and signalled the formal presence of environmental education in schools. The source book contained general information and advice on pedagogy, but what was particularly useful for teachers was a collection of teaching exemplars identified as good practice by an earlier research project (case study) into environmental education in four Christchurch schools (Scott, Reference Scott1984). Many of the exemplars were experiential and took place outside the classroom. According to one person interviewed by Irwin (Reference Irwin2010), the source book gave teachers’ colleges the necessary impetus to develop training in order to support teachers to engage with environmental education.

Christchurch College of Education was likely the first in the country to develop such training, and academics from outdoor education, social studies and science developed an environmental education course that could be taken as an elective by postgraduate trainee secondary teachers from all curriculum areas. That the development of environmental education at Christchurch College of Education was driven by outdoor educators suggests an important transition in the purpose of outdoor education was taking place. Over time, it was noted by academic staff within the outdoor and environmental program at the college that environmental education appeared to attract students into outdoor education (Personal communication, B. Law, February 1, 2008).

There is an increasing range of examples that suggest outdoor education teachers are moving to draw themes relating to EfS into their programs, despite the lingering dependence on unit standards in senior high school discussed earlier. For example, Straker (Reference Straker2014) observes that outdoor educators interviewed commented on engagement in environmental issues with students, and developing relationships of care, concern and responsibility as they spent time engaging in a range of outdoor activities. While many of these behaviours were described in anthropocentrically pragmatic ways, there were numerous small but obvious pro-environmental actions taking place. For example, teachers talked of sourcing local food for camp, fund-raising so disadvantaged students could attend programs, and using Bokashi fermenters to compost food scraps while on school camps.

Further integration of EfS into outdoor education can be found in professional magazines. Secondary teachers Taylor (Reference Taylor2010) and Major (Reference Major2010) both write of using EfS achievement standards in their senior outdoor education programs (Taylor at St Patricks College in Wellington and Major at Papanui High School in Christchurch), while Watson (Reference Watson2012) writes of taking a place-based approach to outdoor education at Wellington East Girls High School. Place-based practices seem to be gaining wider traction in Aotearoa New Zealand. For example, the September issue of The New Zealand Journal of Outdoor Education was a special edition on the notion of place in outdoor education (Brown, Reference Brown2010, p. 5). In another example, a useful Teaching and Learning Research Initiative undertaken by Brown (Reference Brown2012) sought to help two high school outdoor education programs to develop localised experiences in the outdoors that empowered teachers and students to better understand their local places and to undertake action-oriented activity such as habitat restoration.

The publication of two recent books by local authors is also a poignant marker of the increasing engagement of outdoor education with EfS. In Outdoor Education in Aotearoa New Zealand: A New Vision for the Twenty First Century (Irwin, Straker, & Hill, Reference Irwin, Straker and Hill2012), approaches to outdoor education that are framed by socio-ecological thinking (where communities and environments are central to pedagogy) are strongly encouraged. In Pedagogy of Place: Outdoor Education for a Changing World (Wattchow & Brown, Reference Wattchow and Brown2011), place-based and place-responsive approaches to outdoor learning are outlined in ways that integrate elements of local environs, community and embodied knowing, and that develop sensitivity to issues within local environs.

In the tertiary sector, outdoor education programs have also drawn EfS into curriculum. For example, at CPIT, a Bachelor of Sustainability and Outdoor Education has been delivered since 2010, which weaves together curriculum relating to health, environment, social geography, and outdoor education. Other programs are similarly engaging future environmental and outdoor educators in new and innovative ways that will prepare graduates to teach the breadth of the national curriculum in the outdoors.

The focus on the place of Māori in contemporary outdoor education that Cosgriff et al. (Reference Cosgriff, Legge, Brown, Boyes, Zink and Irwin2012) describe is important in that it signals a move to value biculturalism in the outdoors, a critical aspect of EfS. This is because dominant culture tends to view the physical environment as separate, ‘as an objective thing, as a commodity to be developed or traded or wasted or exploited, as an economic unit, as property’ (Zapf, Reference Zapf2005, p. 636), which is a far cry from the spiritual connection and intergenerational obligation to the land that underpins a Māori world view.

Legge (Reference Legge, Irwin, Straker and Hill2012) suggests it is beholden for outdoor educators to build Māori-Pākehā educative partnerships in the outdoors. To achieve this she identifies: expanding personal knowledge through learning Te reo; incorporating marae visits; researching the history and etymological significance of place names; communicating with local hapū and iwi; and seeking the support of Māori mentors. She also notes that ‘outdoor educators need to be willing to learn about their own cultural horizons and identity, in addition to accepting the limits of their cultural competence’ (Legge, Reference Legge, Irwin, Straker and Hill2012, p. 143). For example, Pākeha tertiary educator Ockwell (Reference Ockwell2012) from the University of Otago school of Physical Education describes using waka ama through partnerships established with local tangatawhenua to teach students about Māoritanga. In these ways, outdoor education in Aotearoa New Zealand can become more sensitive to its cultural history.

Outdoor pursuit centres have also demonstrated a move to incorporate more emphasis on environmental education. For example, Graney and Graney (Reference Graney, Graney, Irwin, Straker and Hill2012) outline recent developments at a number of outdoor education centres, including at the SEHOPC, where a greater alignment of delivery with the New Zealand curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007) has occurred, underpinned by a social and ecological perspective and place-based approaches.

A very visible example of the emerging partnership between outdoor education and EfS can be found in a project that ran from 2010 to 2013, funded by Sport NZ. The project saw Education Outdoors New Zealand (EONZ), in partnership with the New Zealand Association of Environmental Education (NZAEE) and the New Zealand Mountain Safety Council (NZMSC) first develop a series of national workshops for teachers on The EOTC Guidelines – Bringing the Curriculum Alive (Ministry of Education, 2009), and second, a collection of web-based resources (see Ministry of Education's EOTC on TKI at http://eotc.tki.org.nz/eotc-home) to support EOTC in the broadest sense. There is a wealth of information about EOTC in Aotearoa New Zealand, including an overview of research relating to EOTC, teaching and learning in the outdoors, Treaty of Waitangi and cultural issues, EfS, place-based education, critical research, and risk and safety.

Glossary

(Note: tribal dialects vary and there is some variation in macron use and spelling)

Hapū — section of a kinship group

Hauora — Well being

Iwi — tribe; often referring to a large group of people descended from a common ancestor.

Māori – Indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand

Māoritanga — A generic term for Māori culture

Marae — tribal meeting ground, complex of buildings including wharenui and wharekai

Pākehā — New Zealander of European descent

Tangata whenua — Local people

Te reo — Māori language

Waka ama — Māori outrigger canoes.