ORRRC at 40! The outdoors and the classroom; forty years is both a lifetime and the blink of an eye.

Outdoor Education

"In a discussion of the developments in the field of education that affect outdoor recreation resources, reference is made to outdoor education, which is the term applied to learning experiences in and for the outdoors. In this context, outdoor education is an emphasis in education or a learning climate which: helps develop concepts and insights about the natural environment and man's relationship to it; provides laboratory experiences for more effective learning in some of the essential subject matter areas, enables one to acquire skills with which to enjoy a lifetime of creative living; and gets us back in touch with those aspects of living where our roots were once firmly established.

Learning in the outdoors applies to the educational activities that take place in outdoor settings; while education for the outdoors encompasses the skills and knowledge necessary for satisfying participation in outdoor pursuits. Learning through the use of the outdoors as a laboratory contributes to the phase of outdoor education which might be termed the appreciation arts."

Smith, J.W. 1962. Developments in the Field of Education Affecting Outdoor Recreation Resources. ORRRC Study Report #22: Trends in American Living and Outdoor Recreation (p 135).

The 1962 Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission (ORRRC) devoted only minimal attention to education. Only one page (reprinted here) of nearly 200 addressed education in the ORRRC Report to the President. In this editorial, we speak to two major points. First, there have been significant developments in outdoor recreation education since the 1960's. Not only has the goal of education in outdoor recreation changed but there has also been an explosion of educational resources related to outdoor recreation and the environment. Second, although there have been significant developments in outdoor recreation education, there has not been commensurate success in measuring the benefit of these efforts.

Significant Developments in Outdoor Recreation Education

CHANGING GOAL

The ORRRC section titled The Outdoors and the Classroom refers to the many ways we communicate with the public in and about the outdoors. The authors of ORRRC suggested that the schools had, by the 1960's, made a promising start in the job of teaching youth about nature. They said that the new emphasis in American education on the natural world was a result of decreased interaction and familiarity with the natural world. Indeed, the industrial revolution removed many from first-hand experiences with nature.

The authors also stated that "the interpretation programs of the National Park Service and of some of the states are good" at stimulating public interest in and enjoyment of nature. They suggested that parks and forests should be more than just space for recreation - that they should also provide walks, talks, exhibits and demonstrations. The goal of outdoor recreation and education according to ORRRC at this time was simply to pique public interest in and enjoyment of nature.

It is true that societal revolutions of the past century (e.g., the service revolution, the technological revolution, and most recently, the electronic revolution) disconnect us from first-hand experiences with nature. And it is true that our schools and parks are ideal institutions for stimulating learning. Today, however, the goal is richer, broader, and more vital. In the past 40 years, the educational goal for both our schools and parks has moved beyond simply stimulating an interest in and enjoyment of nature to one of encouraging personal and meaningful relationships with nature that render an environmentally literate and responsible public. It is increasingly important that all outdoor educators and interpreters work towards increasing public understanding of nature and the outdoors so citizens become impassioned decision makers, change agents, and stewards of the planet. Simply stated, our quality of life benefits from educational and interpretive efforts in outdoor recreation settings.

In our schools, this means a greater focus on experiential education, nature education, and the outdoors. In our parks, this means a greater focus on interpretation as integral to management. In these past 40 years, interpretation has gone from being entertaining, recreational and non-essential to being informational, educational and essential in resource management. Today, many federal, state and local resource management agencies use interpretation to engage visitors in public involvement processes and to help create public policy. Increasingly, interpretation is used to guide people away from sensitive areas, encourage thoughtful use of resources, promote public understanding of agency missions and management, decrease visitor impact, redistribute use, dispel public controversy, or promote conservation awareness.

EXPLOSION OF EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES

These past 40 years have witnessed an explosion of educational resources in our schools, parks, popular media and non-profit organizations. Stimulated in part by Earth Day 1970, attention to the environment and the development of environmental education curricula and materials have increased. Environmental education (known also as outdoor education, nature education, and conservation education -- see ORRRC insert) typically refers to the curriculum-based resources available to schools for connecting students to the natural world. In the last 40 years, literally hundreds of curricula have been developed to stimulate an interest in nature and science among our youth. Project Wild, Project Learning Tree, Project Food, Land and People and Project Wet are but a few of the examples of national environmental education curricula.

National organizations have also helped formalize environmental education in our schools. The National Alliance of Environmental Education (NAAEE) for example, has developed national guidelines for curriculum correlations, materials selection, and teacher training. The Environmental Education and Training Partnership (EETAP), provides key leadership in training and support for state initiatives in environmental education. Countless other national, state and local organizations have emerged over the past 40 years to serve formal education in our schools.

There has also been an explosion of educational opportunities in our parks and forests. Increasingly, we are recognizing that education outside the classroom (informal education) can happen in numerous settings beyond just parks and forests. For example, informal education is ubiquitous in the nation's numerous museums, nature centers, zoos, arboreta, planetaria, aquaria, botanical gardens, pocket parks, city greenways, river ways, open spaces, natural areas, tourism welcome centers, recycling centers, theme parks and so forth. The educational (and interpretive) approaches are as pervasive and varied. Personal programs such as walks, talks, demonstrations, living history and storytelling are employed along with non-personal efforts such as exhibits, signs, publications and technological media.

The explosion in informal education, specifically interpretation, has been aided in large part by national organizations such as the National Association for Interpretation (NAI) whose mission is to inspire leadership and excellence to advance natural and cultural interpretation as a profession. NAI's membership today exceeds 4,500 members in 30 nations. Its certification programs specifically emphasize the value interpretive communication has in achieving resource management goals while encouraging resource stewardship. Today over 500,000 people serve as interpreters, educators, docents and guides in numerous informal learning settings.

As well, our reliance on popular media for education has exploded in the past 40 years. Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and like programming on television have proliferated; magazines devoted to nature, the environment, and outdoor recreation have multiplied; and most recently, attention to the Internet and the World Wide Web as a venue for public discovery and education has mushroomed. In fact, electronic media creates unique opportunities to link people to unusual, fragile, and otherwise inaccessible resources such as caves and deep ocean trenches. UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere Program for example, is uniquely devoted to protecting the planet's biogeographic regions by developing citizen cooperatives who help solve problems while sharing their learning through electronic communication networks and informal education programming.

Finally, the past 40 years has seen an explosion in organized groups who have a public education mission. National Audubon Society, The Nature Conservancy, Sierra Club, Trout/Ducks/ Quail Unlimited, Rails to Trails Conservancy, National Wildlife Federation and countless other non-profit organizations serve to connect people and nature. As ORRRC suggested in 1962, these groups "address themselves most intimately and effectively to disciples, but they can be a powerful educational force for layman as well".

Understanding the Effects and Benefits of Outdoor Recreation Education

There is an old saying about research -- often we are data rich and judgment poor. In the case of interpretation and outdoor education, it could be said that we are program rich and benefits poor. Understanding the effects of the proliferation of interpretation and education on public knowledge, attitudes and behaviors is a formidable task and one that ORRRC did not address 40 years ago. Today, literally thousands of educational resources are used in schools and parks to help facilitate public understanding and stewardship. However, more is not necessarily better. Creating more resources does not necessarily mean we have created a more literate or caring public. In fact, we have done a fairly dismal job of understanding the impact of our efforts.

A plethora of descriptive research has been conducted related to visitor use of parks or participation in educational programs. For example, we often gather descriptive information about visitors -- where they come from, who they travel with, their age, gender, ethnic origin, group size and so on. We sometimes gather information about why they come, what they know when they arrive, and what they expect from their visit. We also sometimes measure on-site, immediate or short-term effects of learning--what visitors remember, think or feel as a result of their experiences.

However, we know little about the long-term effects of their learning -- what visitors ultimately retain from their experiences and how stewardship behaviors are fostered. And, we know even less about the ultimate benefits to society from educating visitors and recreationists. We suspect that society derives some set of personal, social, economic or environmental benefits from an environmentally literate populace, but little research supports this notion.

Our research efforts have tended to be periodic snap-shots describing what happens on-site. We have focused little on a rigorous evaluation that is necessary to understand how educational resources (from brochures to visitor centers to seminars) affect and benefit individuals, families, communities and the environment. Unfortunately, our research efforts often lack the scientific structure that allows us to understand cause and affect relationships; that is, our efforts frequently lack such experimental features as pre- and post-measures, control groups, random sampling, repeated measures or multiple measurement tools. Furthermore, we tend to wait until after a program is fully implemented to begin measuring its impacts. Thus, our ability to speak with confidence about the value, impact or benefit of our programs is deservedly low. Visitor studies of the last two decades, however, demonstrate that effectiveness can be improved if monitoring and evaluation is integrated before, during and after programs are developed and implemented.

In summary, ORRRC's attention to education in 1962 albeit modest, provoked our thinking and attention to the Outdoors and the Classroom. If ORRRC were rewritten today, the attention to education would undeniably be much larger, more visionary and would make an inextricable link between outdoor experiences and lifelong learning. We realize today, that one of the major advantages of outdoor recreation is that it provides a teachable moment. People visit the outdoors to learn and discover, to explore and experiment. During their leisure time, they often seek out and are receptive to new information and ideas. Interpretation and environment education programs can increase visitor understanding of resources and their management, help instill a stewardship ethic, increase low-impact behaviors and increase civility and tolerance for diverse recreation experiences.

The notion that recreation and education are separate activities requiring separate administration is still far too pervasive in some sectors. Recreation and education are not separate. Recreation is not a spectator sport. Rather, recreation is an opportunity (and a stimulus) for learning. And we educators should do what we can to stimulate active involvement by the public in programs that improve the public estate and ultimately our quality of life.

Have we made progress in the past 40 years? The truest answer is both yes and no. Yes, we have more nature and science programs, experiential curricula, interpretation and environmental education. And yes, we have more education infrastructure such as nature centers, visitor centers, guided trails, camps, wildlife viewing areas, scenic byways, ecotourism resorts and museums. Indeed, we have increased our capacity to engage the public in both formal and informal education.

That said, our efforts to measure and understand the impact and benefits of our efforts have not been commensurate with our efforts to create resources. Our research and evaluation efforts need serious attention and refinement, for we still don't fully understand what it takes to create an ecologically literate and responsible citizenry. Many of our citizens do not yet make personal or meaningful connections with nature or realize that all energy, food and fiber are ultimately derived from nature. Many citizens have not adopted responsible or stewardship behaviors necessary to sustain our natural resources. Indeed, as was the case 40 years ago, "[T]here is a bigger job yet of education to be done."

Outdoor Recreation in America

A higher priority should be given to recreation and scenic values in the overall design of new major highways. The Palisades Parkway in New Jersey is a good example of what can be done when the effort is made. Existing highways, moreover, can be made much more attractive. Anti billboard efforts should be continued, and there should be more provision of reststops, scenic lookouts, and picnic areas.

The job of improving the recreation potential of highways is primarily one for States and local governments, but the Federal Government can exert a significant influence. It might, for example, help see to it that the new interstate highways are routed as much as possible around parks and open spaces rather than through them. The threat of such encroachment is a very live issue in many communities, particularly those that have had the foresight to lay aside open space. Unless the trend is reversed, many new highways will be a net subtraction from the recreation supply rather than an addition to it.

The fact that Americans enjoy driving provides a fine opportunity to increase the quality of outdoor recreation. Education is the key. All too frequently the automobile traveler thinks little or nothing of the country en route, yet in every section there is some attraction not so far off the track that would be of interest to him. It need not be a Carlsbad Caverns or a Mount Vernon. It can be a demonstration area explaining soil conservation methods or a museum of the history of a State or community. If more were done to let people know about such attractions, they would serve the dual purpose of increasing the pleasure of driving and of bringing additional income to the area. Some of the oil companies now publish illustrated maps showing the little known as well as the more familiar features in a region. The use of secondary roads should be promoted -- slower traveling than on the superhighways, but to the driver who is not in a hurry, much more pleasant.

THE OUTDOORS AND THE CLASSROOM.

There is a bigger job yet of education to be done. For the youth of this century the outdoors is no longer the familiar part of everyday life that once it was. Now they have to learn about it, and there is increasing awareness that it is important they do. Lately there has been a new emphasis in American education on the natural world; and the new magazines and books on the subject attest that Americans of all ages are showing an awakening interest in the land and its history.

In the schools a promising start has been made, but it is only a start. There are nature courses, but not enough of them nor are they in enough schools. Many state conservation departments maintain educational programs both in and out of the school system, including conservation workshops for teachers, and some maintain camps and study groups. But here again the efforts are too few and expansion is called for.

One of the particularly commendable features of the Cook County Forest Preserve District is its stress on education. It has made extensive use of newspapers, radio, and television to tell the public about its nature centers and trails. It also works closely with Chicago schools and has stimulated much of the work in conservation education by the teachers.

The "nature centers" movement offers another excellent vehicle. By setting aside natural areas in the midst of metropolitan development, private groups are enabling children to learn at first hand about such simple, but to them entrancing, elements of the outdoors as wild flowers and deer and brooks. Other new departures that should be followed up are school camping programs and the use of more outdoor facilities under the new "12-months classroom" idea. The youth hostel movement, far more advanced in Europe than here, should get increased support.

The interpretive programs of the National Park Service and of some of the states are good, but they meet only a fraction of the need. The managers of public and private forests and parks have a chance to do more than provide space for vacationers: they can arrange for systematic nature walks, illustrated talks, movies, exhibits, and demonstration of natural phenomena for their visitors. He who knows what to look for in a forest or on a seashore is likely to find there much more of interest and enjoyment. Trained park nd forest people have a knowledge to impart about the land and water and wildlife, and there is a widening group of citizens eager to learn.

Another force of importance in this field is organized groups that cover every remote sector of the outdoor recreation field: the mountain clubs, wildlife groups, boating associations, and the other active societies catering to lovers of wilderness and waters, caves and walking, bicycling and swimming, skin diving and bird watching. These groups serve a special purpose -- they address themselves most intimately and effectively to disciples -- but they can be a powerful educational force for the layman as well. Their aid should be enlisted in the development of education programs, involving such things as outdoor museums and exhibits. Vacationers, in effect, can become companions with conservation and wildlife organizations and thus have their enjoyment multiplied many times by the acquisition of new knowledge.

SHARPENING THE TOOLS

The needs can be met. They do not involve abstruse problems that depend upon some intellectual or scientific breakthrough for their solution. The tools exist. Virtually every concept that seems new has been foreshadowed in the bold efforts of former years. There are difficult problems, but the same kinds of problems have been surmounted before, and they can be again.

Obviously money will be needed. While this is true of most public programs, it seems to be particularly true of outdoor recreation. Public expenditures in this field have increased in recent years, notably so in several states, but in general they have not kept pace with the demand. The prospect for the coming years is that expenditures will have to be increased substantially just to keep up with increases in population; the demand for outdoor recreation will grow faster yet.

But the people will not begrudge the money, not if the case is put before them. It is their children they are voting for, and this they well understand. Wherever political leaders have gone to the people with a bold program -- as recently in New York, New Jersey, and Wisconsin -- the popular support has been overwhelming.

There should be many more of these programs and the federal government can help bring them about. It can give technical assistance and grants-in-aid to state and local governments, and it can do much to encourage a greater contribution by private interests. Federal aid cannot provide more than a fraction of the funds needed, nor should it; its great importance will be as a catalyst to spur local and state action.

CONTACT INFORMATION FOR EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS

National Alliance of Environmental Education (NAAEE) 410 Tarvin Road Rock Spring, GA 30739 Tel: 706-764-d2926 Fax: 706-764-dd2094 Email: [e-mail]

Environmental Education and Training Partnership (EETAP) College of Natural Resources University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point Stevens Point, WI 54481 Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone]

National Wildlife Federation (NWF) 11100 Wildlife Center Drive Reston, VA 20190-5362 Tel: [phone] www.nwf.org

National Association for Interpretation (NAI) P.O. Box 2246 Fort Collins, C0 80522 Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone] Toll Free: 888-900-8283 www.interpnet.com

Tim Merriman is the executive director of the National Association for Interpretation (NAI), who interpret natural and cultural heritage. Merriman's 32-year career includes being a park ranger/interpreter, nature center director, conservation director and research manager with TVA's Land Between the Lakes. Dr.

Marcella Wells has particular interests in visitor studies and evaluation research, interpretive planning and coaching, and environmental education. Wells is currently working on projects with NRPA, the National Park Service, American Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta, and others. Together they have combined forces to produce this month's history article, "ORRRC at 40: The Outdoors and the Classroom" on page 94.