outdoor education

A Guide and Call to Honor Native Land

From the website: “Created in partnership with Native allies and organizations, the Guide offers context about the practice of acknowledgment, gives step-by-step instructions for how to begin wherever you are, and provides tips for moving beyond acknowledgment into action.” Visit the US Department of Arts and Culture’s website to download the guide and take steps towards equitable reconciliation.

Wildness: Relations of People and Place

Wildness, an anthology of essays edited by Gavin Van Horn and John Hausdoerffer, explores the different relationships between people and the concept of “wildness.” We like this book because it has stories by people with marginalized identities about their community’s relationships with wildness. These types of stories often aren’t told in the dominant narrative. We also like this book because it distinguishes “wildness” from “wilderness,” which is a political construct. If you’re looking for stories of how people connect to land beyond hiking, biking, and climbing, this is the book for you. Buy the book here.

Lumbersexuality and Its Discontents

“One hundred years ago, a crisis in urban masculinity created the lumberjack aesthetic. Now it’s making a comeback.” In this Atlantic essay, Willa Brown addresses class as it relates to the “lumbersexual” aesthetic that is prevalent in the outdoor industry. This is a great think piece that prompts questions such as: (1) was outdoor recreation always aimed at the middle and upper classes?; (2) does the industry’s “lumberjack” aesthetic constitute cultural appropriation of a particular class of people? Complicated, but a great read if you’re interested in how class has played into the aesthetics of outdoor recreation. Read the article here.

Environmental Education Better Results Toolkit

This toolkit, developed by Learning for Action, is useful for any environmental, outdoor, or place-based education organization seeking to evaluate its programs and build tools to measure impact. Though the toolkit doesn’t have a DEI lens, coupled with DEI practices such as the Avarna Group’s 3R framework for building culturally relevant, responsible, and responsive curriculum, this toolkit can really support showing positive impacts of DEI work in program/curriculum design.

Instructor Bias Self Assessment

This checklist is great for outdoor, experiential, and environmental educators (as well as traditional educators) to assess how bias might be manifesting in their teaching and to mitigate bias in any classroom, indoor and outside.

Toolkit on Implementing the President’s Memo on Diversity & Inclusion in Public Lands & Waters

We built this toolkit to help you implement the Presidential Memorandum issued on January 12th, 2017. The memo is available online here. The toolkit is attached.

Crimes against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves, and the Hidden History of American Conservation

Crimes against Nature reveals the hidden history behind three of the nation’s first parklands: the Adirondacks, Yellowstone, and the Grand Canyon. Focusing on conservation’s impact on local inhabitants, Karl Jacoby traces the effect of criminalizing such traditional practices as hunting, fishing, foraging, and timber cutting in the newly created parks. Jacoby reassesses the nature of these “crimes” and provides a rich portrait of rural people and their relationship with the natural world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The book is available for purchase online here.

Black Faces, White Spaces

This book explores the complex history and relationship of African Americans with the outdoors. A must read for folks in the camp, outdoor education, and outdoor recreation space. The book is available to order online here.

A Manufactured Wilderness: Summer Camps and the Shaping of American Youth, 1890–1960

This book by Abigail A. Van Slyck examines the unique history and legacy of summer camps in the U.S. For those who don’t want to read the entire book, in our work with camps and outdoor recreation, we found following chapters particularly enlightening:

• the Introduction
• Chapter 3 (titled “Housing the Healthy Camper: Tents, Cabins, and Attitudes towards Health.”
• Chapter 5 (titled “Good and Dirty? Girls, Boys, and Camp Cleanliness”)
• Chapter 6 (titled “Living Like Savages. Tipis, Council Rings, and Playing Indian”)

The book is available on Amazon here.

The Limitations of Teaching ‘Grit’ in the Classroom

This Atlantic essay examines the pervasive use of “grit” (and “resilience”) in the American education system, and why the use of these words is “irresponsible and unfair” because students who have been exposed to trauma (a) already possess grit and resilience; and (b) cannot change their mindsets without changing the situation around them. For outdoor education organizations that have “grit” and “resilience” as outcomes, read this for a new perspective. Read the article here.

Think before you appropriate: Things to know and questions to ask in order to avoid appropriating indigenous cultures.

For those looking for a toolkit or checklist on indigenous appropriation, this guide published by Creative Commons will be useful. This is particularly useful for camps and outdoor education organizations who have historically or contemporarily utilized indigenous culture, iconography, rituals, costumes, and other cultural resources.

“Native Re-Appropriations” Interview with Adrienne Keene

In this video, Professor Adrienne Keene explains the impact of the appropriation of native iconography and cultural resources on indigenous people. This video is useful for outdoor organizations and camps who historically or contemporarily practice indigenous rituals, utilize indigenous costumes or customs, or utilize indigenous iconography. Watch the video here.