Abstract
I am excited to share with you the six articles in this issue of the Journal of Experiential Education. These articles together explore wilderness expeditions, service learning implementation, and educational responses to environmental crises. The articles in this issue add importantly to the research on experiential education by critically examining some of the places (wilderness), educational approaches (service learning), and perspectives (towards environmental crises) within our field.
Two of the articles in this issue explore the changes that occur within wilderness expeditions. Widmer, LeCheminant, and Christensen explored how participation in an eight-week wilderness therapy program impacted the mental and physical health of adolescent participants. Their quantitative study of 112 adolescents in one wilderness therapy program found significant positive effects on the measured physiological variables, as well as reductions in mental health symptoms, from pre- to post-program. This study adds to the body of literature establishing the efficacy of such programs in terms of mental and physical health improvement from pre to post, while leaving future research to explore questions of longitudinal outcomes. The second article in this issue exploring wilderness expeditions, Rohn and Conway, is a qualitative study of college students thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail. This study utilized an in-depth, longitudinal, and phenomenological approach, seeking to understand the lived experiences of four participants’ trail lives, self-efficacy, self-confidence, and goal orientation. Using audio diaries and semi-structured interviews at multiple time points, the study explored how student-guided, immersive wilderness experiences may enhance traits within students that promote college success.
Several of the articles in this issue explore service learning educational implementation. The first of these, authored by Aquino, examined how doctoral students in educational leadership worked together in a remote learning environment during the COVID-19 pandemic to transition an in-person service learning project to a completely online workshop. The article explores technology needs in such scenarios, challenges presented in asynchronous learning, and the shifting roles of graduate students during this time of transition. The second of these service learning implementation articles, by Shea, Harkins, Ray, and Grenier, used an exploratory mixed methods study design to examine how service learning in classrooms affected undergraduate students’ civic attitudes. This study analyzed course syllabi as well as quantitative measures of students’ civic attitudes, collecting data from 55 students in 10 undergraduate courses with service learning components. The authors conclude that the specific pedagogy and implementation used with service learning activities appeared correlated with greater changes in students’ reported civic attitudes, suggesting the importance of how service learning is implemented in educational settings.
The final two articles in this issue present different perspectives on how education can respond to environmental crises. The first of these, by Gal, examined the environmental attitudes of fourth grade students in a “green school” which uses a place-based environmental approach. Using qualitative methods, this study considered how young students were able to connect local and natural phenomena to global environmental crises, noting that students struggled to see these connections. The authors recommend that teachers in “green schools” educate students on the linkages between local environmental occurrences and global environmental concerns. The final article in this issue, by Wise, Martin, Szolosi, and Foreman, argues that outdoor education is an ideal educational setting in which to educate students on how to relate to the environment. The authors propose “a shift in focus” from viewing the environment as a resource to be used towards viewing it in the context of a strong human-nature relationship, with reciprocity cultivated by activities which promote nature connectedness. They argue that fostering this relational attitude towards nature among students holds promise for addressing the environmental crises which face us.