Post-Secondary Nature Connection Examples

The following course examples demonstrate nature connection education in practice throughout varied contexts including urban environments, engineering disciplines, therapy, business, and art. Aspects of course structures, learning goals, and outcomes can serve as inspiration in your own educational approaches.

• Canadian Centre for Advanced Leadership in Business (CCAL), Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary – The Haskayne Leadership Expedition
  The Haskayne Leadership Expedition is a unique field course designed to help students cultivate the practical skills and qualities they need to thrive as leaders in the modern business world. The course is highly experiential, and students have multiple extended opportunities to practice and receive feedback on their leadership skills in a dynamic and challenging environment.

• Leduc, T. B. (2016). Renewing Awe in the Urban Experience: Historic Changes in Land-Based Education. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education (CJEE), 21, 163–177.
  This paper looks at the historic emergence of land experience in environmental education and thinking as a means for examining its potential role in an urban academic setting.

• McGregor, R., & Park, M. S.-A. (2019). Towards a deconstructed curriculum: Rethinking higher education in the Global North. Teaching in Higher Education, 24(3), 332–345. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2019.1566221
  The purpose of this article is to argue for the deconstruction rather than the decolonization of the neocolonial curriculum. Two case studies are used – Frantz Fanon and Çiğdem Kağitçibaşi – to demonstrate how the deconstruction of the Global North curriculum can be achieved, by the prioritization of theory and practice that are sensitive to context.

• Pryor, A., Carpenter, C., & Townsend, M. (2005). Outdoor education and bush adventure therapy: A socio-ecological approach to health and wellbeing. Journal of Outdoor and Environmental Education, 9(1), 3–13. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03400807
  Whether in educational or therapeutic settings, the intentional use of contact with nature, small groups, and adventure provides a unique approach in the promotion of health and wellbeing for the general population, and for individuals with identified health vulnerabilities. This paper explicitly emphasizes human and social health, however, an integral assumption is that a healthy and sustainable environment is dependent on healthy human relationships with nature.

• Sunassee, A., Bokhoree, C., & Patrizio, A. (2021). Students’ Empathy for the Environment through Eco-Art Place-Based Education: A Review. Ecologies, 2(2), Article 2. https://doi.org/10.3390/ecologies2020013
  This paper aims to analyze educational research papers published in environmental art education in order to find the factor with the greatest effect and illuminate how they can help to improve the measures implemented.

• Zacharias, K., Seniuk Cicek, J., Wallace, N., & Mercer, K. (2022). Surveying Land-Based Learning for Engineering Education: Preliminary Steps. Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association (CEEA). https://doi.org/10.24908/pceea.vi.15942
  This paper reports the findings of an initial literature and website search of land-based education initiatives in Canadian post-secondary institutions. This work represents the first stage of a larger project, which aims to gather information about existing land-based education within Canadian post-secondary institutions and develop land-based curriculum for engineering students.

The Value of Nature-Based Contemplative Pedagogy

The following materials focus on tangible and intangible benefits of nature-based teaching pedagogies, meant to serve as inspiration for the purpose of your work in this space.

• Albrecht, N. J. (2020). Nature-based Mindfulness and the Development of the Ecological Self When Teaching in Higher Education. In O. Ergas & J. K. Ritter (Eds.), Exploring Self Toward Expanding Teaching, Teacher Education and Practitioner Research (Vol. 34, pp. 157–177). Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-368720200000034010
  In this chapter, Albrecht describes their experience of teaching and designing curriculum that integrates contemplative practices with sustainability education in the space of higher education.

• Gender-Based Violence and Violence Against the Land (Guelph-Wellington Women In Crisis, 2022)
  The 2Rivers Festival presents a podcast in partnership with Guelph-Wellington Women and Crisis and Protect the Tract that explores the relationship between colonization, gender-based violence, land violence and consent. Host Jensen Williams discusses the role of consent in movements to end gender-based violence and ensure land rights with Courtney Skye of Protect the Tract and Emma Callon and Horeen Hassan of the 2Rivers Festival.

• Moreira, J., Araújo, P., Pereira, M., & Melo, A. (2023). Educating through (Re)connection: Contributions of contemplative sciences and meditative practices for a new mindset in education. Seven Editora. https://sevenpublicacoes.com.br/index.php/editora/article/view/2360
  In this paper, using literature review and essayistic reasoning, influenced by future research methods, the authors envision a possibility of contemplative science and meditative practices at the core of this fundamental shift in education. They emphasize the need for a new perspective that ends the divisions between Nature and Humanity, reconnects us with Nature again, promoting a sustainable mindset at all levels of education, and using transdisciplinary and innovative approaches.

• Pedrick, B. (2023). Sharing the Power of Nature-Based Contemplative Practices for Inner Peace and Collective Well-Being. Mind & Life Institute.
  Pedrick highlights numerous real-world examples of how nature-based practices have contributed to community well-being and growth.

• Jackson-Saulters (2021). Nature Meditations: Simple mindfulness practices inspired by the natural world. Chronicle Books.
  Jackson-Saulters created this resource to engage people in the restorative powers of nature. Each card features a bite-size meditation or visualization practice, designed to help people connect to the therapeutic benefits of the natural world. By simply pulling a card, users can create a moment of calm and clarity in their day.

• Van Horn, G., Wall Kimmerer R., & Hausdoerffer J. (2021). Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations. Center for Humans and Nature.
  This five volume series explores our deep interconnections with the living world. These five Kinship books—Planet, Place, Partners, Persons, Practice—offer essays, interviews, poetry, and stories of solidarity, highlighting the interdependence that exists between humans and nonhuman beings.

Examples of Land as Teacher

Use these materials to expand your own exploration of learning from the living world, and/or introduce content to students and invite them to reflect on shifts in perspective.

• Simpson, L. (2017). Land as Pedagogy. In As We Have Always Done (p. 145–173). University of Minnesota Press.
  Simpson explores how to build Indigenous resistance movements that refuse the destructive thinking of settler colonialism.

• Spring Creek Project. 2020, Feb 22. Animal Interlude: Bald Eagle. (video, 0:05:00)
  MOsley WOtta reads a passage about the Bald Eagle from Kathleen Dean Moore’s book “Earth’s Wild Music.” WOtta is accompanied by Tom Foe on experimental guitar.The Animal Interludes series consist of 20 tiny concerts, each an original composition of words and music in honor of a threatened or beloved animal. They are part of the series “Music to Save Earth’s Songs,” inspired by Kathleen Dean Moore’s book “Earth’s Wild Music: Celebrating and Defending the Songs of the Natural World” (Counterpoint Press 2021). About the contributors: Jason Graham created his stage name, MOsley WOtta (or “MOWO”), from the idea that every human is made mostly of water.

• Spring Creek Project. 2021, Jan 25. Animal Interlude: Common Murre read by Robin Kimmerer. (video, 0:04:50)
  In this Animal Interlude, Robin Wall Kimmerer reads a passage about the Common Murre from Kathleen Dean Moore’s book “Earth’s Wild Music.” Kimmerer is accompanied by a string duet, with Erika Nagamoto on violin and Titus Young on cello.

• Barrett, M.J., Hinz, V., Wijngaarden, V. and Lovrod, M. (2021). Speaking’ with other animals through intuitive interspecies communication: towards cognitive and interspecies justice. Hovorka, A.J., McCubbin, S. and van Patter, L. (Ed.s). A Research Agenda for Animal Geographies. Edward Elgar Publishing. Cheltenham, UK. pp.149-165. DOI: 10.4337/9781788979993.00018
  This chapter focuses on the experience of immediate two-way communication between humans and other animals that is independent of physical proximity. The authors describe intuitive interspecies communication (IIC) and review current research on multispecies methods and IIC literature.