Taking the VELS Outdoors: Meeting the VELS Through Outdoor Education

Experiential learning outdoors is, no doubt, the oldest form of learning¹. Modern outdoor education arose in the early 20^th century, with the rise of the scouting movement and the advent of Outward Bound and the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme². These early endeavours in outdoor education were intended to ‘build the character’ of participants. Typical aims included building resilience, improving teamwork and enhancing leadership skills.

As awareness of human impacts on nature grew in the latter part of the 20^th century, the focus of outdoor education tended to shift toward environmental education. A premise of this shift was that improved appreciation and understanding of nature would lead to more environmentally sustainable behaviour.

Modern outdoor education programs in Australia tend to focus on one of three areas:

enhancing subject learning, for example practical exercises in geography, science, art, music and drama that use natural settings for inspiration
environmental education
personal development.

Although most educators generally seem to agree that experiential learning outdoors is valuable for students, and indeed, can often improve relationships between students and teachers, there is a wide range of ideas about how to make the most of these opportunities educationally. The costs and administrative requirements of outdoor education are usually not trivial.

To illustrate how to gain the most value from outdoor learning programs, we asked educators from three schools to respond to two questions.

How does your school address the VELS through outdoor learning programs?
Which domains and dimensions do you address?

The schools were:

Bogong Outdoor Education Centre (one of the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development’s three residential outdoor schools)
Gilson College (an independent, co-educational P – 12 college)
Sacred Heart College Kyneton (a co-educational catholic secondary college)

The most common domains addressed in Outdoor Education programs were from the Physical, Personal and Social Learning strand: Health and Physical Education, Interpersonal Development and Personal Learning Domains. The Discipline-based Learning and Interdisciplinary Learning strands were also well represented through Domains such as Geography, Thinking Processes and Communication. The following case studies provide examples of how Outdoor Education programs have been linked to the VELS.

Bogong Outdoor Education Centre – Level 6

At Bogong, a range of VELS Domains are addressed, however there are a number of activities that focus on the Working in teams dimension of Interpersonal Development domain. There is a focus on developing the students’ knowledge and skills related to working in teams. The activities that the students are involved in have a bias towards the development of an effective team. The location of the activities on the Bogong High Plains enables the students to develop a knowledge and understanding of the alpine environment as a major natural system and the consequences of human interaction on this system. This addresses elements of the standards from the Geographic knowledge and understanding dimension of the Geography domain. This knowledge is then used to develop a connection between the alpine environment and the students’ home environment. The use of activities such as orienteering allows student to demonstrate the Geospatial skills dimension of the Geography domain.

Domain	Dimension	Key elements of standard
Interpersonal Development	Working in teams	Students: work collaboratively, negotiate roles and delegate tasks to complete complex tasks in teams. describe how they respect and build on the ideas and opinions of team members... develop and implement strategies for improving their contributions to achieving the team goals.
Personal Learning	Managing personal learning	Students: initiate personal short-term and long-term learning goals and negotiate appropriate courses of action to achieve them.
Geography	Geographic knowledge and understanding	Students: explain the operation of a major natural system and its interaction with human activities. evaluate the consequences of the interaction …
Geography	Geospatial skills	Students: accurately interpret information on different types of maps and photographs at a range of scales, and use map evidence to support explanations, draw inferences and predict associated outcomes.

Gilson College

Gilson College seeks to address a wide range of learning aims through its Learning 4 Life program (L4L). Now in its 5th year of operation, the Year 9 L4L program at Gilson College is a multidisciplinary integrated, experiential education program, based loosely on the model developed by Kurt Hahn as used in the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme.

At Gilson College, a framework was developed which allowed students to be involved in expeditionary learning, urban learning, and service learning, and where possible, classroom studies were linked to these broader themes. The L4L program integrates a range of VELS Domains, which include Geography, Health and Physical Education, Communication, Thinking Processes, Personal Learning, Interpersonal Development and Civics and Citizenship. The following discussion focuses on the expeditionary aspects of the L4L program.

As part of the expeditionary component of the program, students participate in a range of walks in areas such as Werribee Gorge State Park, Mount Buangor State Park, Bogong High Plains in the Alpine National Park in Victoria, and The Central Plateau World Heritage Area and Walls of Jerusalem National Park in Tasmania. This allows students to demonstrate elements of the standards from the Geography Domain. This includes studying mountain landforms as a natural system and using maps for navigation. Leading up to and including each of the walks, students study map and compass work, cross sections and profiles, landform studies, and participate in flora and fauna identification in the areas they visit. Class time is taken to introduce minimal impact walking techniques, and this is reinforced on each of the walks. Other skills necessary to walk safely in these areas are also taught and a number of these are assessed.

Students keep journals of their observations and experiences while on the walks, and from the evening debrief/reflection sessions, and once they have returned to the classroom. While on the walks, time and space is provided for teacher, peer and self-assessment to also be included in the journals. This incorporates elements of the standards from both the Thinking Processes and Personal Learning domains.

Once the expeditionary component of the program is completed, students work towards a public presentation of their learning and experiences which addresses standards in both the Communication and Personal Learning Domains. On a given evening, each student is provided with a display space in the school hall to organise as they wish. Parents, teachers, fellow students, and members of the community are invited, and as they circulate around the hall, the students speak to whoever approaches them about what they have learned and experienced, answering questions and giving detailed descriptions of their learning and experiences.

Sacred Heart College Kyneton

Students from Year 7 to Year 10 undertake an outdoor education program. This is an integral part of the college curriculum, helping students to develop social, emotional and interpersonal skills.

The aims to assist students to develop:

self-confidence
optimism
high self-esteem
respect and understanding of others
achievement of personal excellence
communication skills
problem solving and decision making skills
leadership skills
team work skills.

At VELS Level 5 the outdoor education program involves an indigenous awareness camp and a surf coast adventure. Although these programs have the ability to address standards in a range of VELS domains, at Sacred Heart College the outdoor education program is used to assess standards in the Interpersonal Development and Health and Physical Education domains.

Domain	Dimension	Key elements of standard
Interpersonal development	Working in teams	accept responsibility as a team member and support other members to share information, explore the ideas of others, and work cooperatively to achieve a shared purpose within a realistic timeframe. reflect on individual and team outcomes and act to improve their own and the team’s performance.
Health and P.E.	Movement and physical activity	measure their own fitness and physical activity levels and identify factors that influence motivation to be physically active. maintain regular participation in moderate to vigorous physical activity and analyse and evaluate their level of involvement in physical activity.
Health and P.E.	Health Knowledge and Promotion	identify outcomes of risk-taking behaviours and evaluate harm-minimisation strategies.

Conclusion

This brief exploration has shown that a range of VELS domains and dimensions are targeted by outdoor education programs in different school contexts. The more common domains addressed by outdoor education programs include Geography, Communication, Thinking Processes, Interpersonal Development, Personal Learning and Health and Physical Education. These domains are by no means the limits of application for outdoor education.

Gilson College stated:

‘We believe we get a high level of transfer from our outdoor learning programs because we not only integrate many of the units studied with the L4L program undertaken at the time, but we – the Year 9 teachers – also lead each of the L4L components. We are able to take the experiences gained in the field with our students back into the classroom and remind them of these on a day to day basis.’

As shown in the contributions from schools, outdoor education offers some unique and powerful avenues for the teaching and learning of a wide range of the VELS. During a time when we seek to further hone and develop our tools and strategies for preparing young people for successful lives, it may be that this oldest of teaching methods has a great deal to offer.

Notes:

Neill, J. 2004, When did Outdoor Education Begin?, (http://wilderdom.com/history/WhenDidOutdoorEducationBegin.html)
Wikipedia, 2009, Outdoor Education (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outdoor_Education)

Acknowledgments

The VCAA acknowledges the contributions to this article from Roger Blackwell and Jarrod Paine (Bogong Outdoor Education Centre), Tony Robinson (Gilson College) and Jeff Rieniets (Sacred Heart College Kyneton) and the Victorian Outdoor Education Association (VOEA).

VOEA can be contacted at www.voea.vic.edu.au or education@voea.vic.edu.au.