Literature on place-based education was reviewed, highlighting the benefits of nature relationality, key examples of practices, new opportunities for research, and gaps in current approaches to sustainability work. The review focuses on themes that point toward ways to enhance students’ relationships with the outdoors through nature connection in post-secondary education experiences.

Much of what scholars have learned and can learn about place-based education comes from lived experiences and Indigenous Traditional Knowledge which is not consistently documented in Western academic formats. To discount the intrinsic value and importance of unpublished knowledge would be discrediting the very principles of place-based education. The authors recognize this substantial gap and recognize that the review itself is limited to sources that have fit into the institutional structure of Western academics.

Addressing Colonial Legacies

Place-based education practices are continuously progressing in how they draw attention to settler colonial histories of and Indigenous claims to land. Educators thus may struggle with how to facilitate connection to place without reinforcing another form of settler colonialism (McCoy et al., 2017). The authors recognize that concerns have been raised over appropriation of Indigenous knowledge. Part of the motivation for creating this resource for educators was to explore how to better navigate these concerns, and to share the value in exploring different epistemologies. Although some educators may dismiss the importance of acknowledging settler colonialism, place-based education must practice both social and ecological justice in an education system that perpetuates a lack of acknowledgment of the history and realities of Indigenous peoples (Scully, 2012)—of genocide and ecocide. One of the significant continuing practices of colonialism in the Western world is the perception that the living earth (aka “nature”) is separate from people, instead of recognizing how relationality and connection to place is deeply connected to who we are as humans (Scully, 2012). Approaches to place-based education and land-based education in post-secondary institutions, on stolen land where displacement has occurred, require foregrounding the Traditional Knowledge and histories of a specific place.

For non-Indigenous educators, being exposed to Indigenous knowledge systems includes seeing and understanding the world in a holistic way as ancestors did (Goodchild, 2021). Learning about these values must be brought back to sustainability education, starting with educators who value and understand Indigenous Traditional Knowledge as something meaningful for themselves (Calderon et al., 2021). Learning from and about Indigenous approaches to knowing regenerates the critical understanding that people are dependent upon the natural world and ecological relationships.

Gahman and Legault (2019) propose a decolonial place-based education approach where course content is situated in relation to Indigenous places as much as possible and is done so by listening and engaging with Indigenous community members. They emphasize that “learning is not simply the compiling and recitation of ‘thing-like bits of information’ (Nadasdy 2003), but rather that knowledge is a verb, not simply a noun.” As educators pursue nature connection, they must be conscious of positioning themselves as promoters of education, rather than experts on the experiences and/or perspectives of Indigenous people.

Sensitivity to context in which educators teach can be employed to distinguish different types of curricula: neocolonial, decolonized, and deconstructed (McGregor & Park, 2019). Facilitating neocolonial curriculum often ignores context in favour of outdated and biased text, decolonized curriculum prioritizes context (the local culture, circumstances, and commitments) over text, and deconstructed curriculum combines text and context, prioritizing texts that can be applied to multiple contexts. Addressing colonial legacies in nature connection education will look unique in the context of each educator, their students, and their environment.

Reconnecting with Nature

Understanding Nature Connection

The focus on studying human relationships with the natural world has become increasingly important with the growing severity of the environmental crisis, where humanity’s disconnection from nature has been proposed as a root cause of unsustainability (Ives et al., 2018). Part of this disconnect is attributed to the abstraction of knowledge in western scientific study, where lived experiences of connection with nature have been construed into a written description that we consider a higher form of knowledge, yet has lost the tangible feeling and purpose of the practice in the first place (Goodchild, 2021). There are multiple approaches to reconnecting with place and the living world, all of which involve being open to different ways of knowing to create a practice that builds an authentic relationship with nature.

Curricula can be based on life-centered values, not interfering but working with dynamics in nature, and cultivating relationships based on values of care and respect that focus on the intrinsic beauty, diversity, and value of natural systems (Armon, 2015). Ives et al. (2018) propose five dimensions through which we experience and engage in nature connection: (1) material, where we interact with tangible aspects of nature such working with plants, feeling a water body, or eating freshly foraged fruits; (2) experiential, in which a defining moment or lived experience in nature prompts us to pursue further connection; (3) cognitive, in how we ask questions about nature and further our learning; (4) emotional, where we identify nature’s influence on our feelings; and (5) philosophical connections, related to how nature inspires extensive thought. When we re-imagine sustainability work by welcoming new perceptions and relationships to ecology, we become more in tune with the natural world (Morris, 2002).

Reconnecting people with nature in learning is key to addressing environmental challenges; without having the knowledge, skills, and resilience that nature connection offers, facing the complex interplay between environmental and socio-political factors becomes increasingly difficult and dissociative. Reconnecting people with nature includes intentional, meaningful, and tangible actions to create effective relationships that address sustainability issues (Ives et al., 2018). By engaging with the living world and the climate, educators can foster critical and imaginative capacities in their students that “are grounded in the historic depth and interdisciplinary breadth of these places so that the issues of our time become more real in the sense of being connected to who we are in our intimate relations with family, friends, community, nation, and planet” (Leduc, 2016, p. 174).

Language Related to Nature Connection

Nature connection as a science, a movement, and a practice can encompass numerous related concepts. This eBook takes a more broad and general approach to defining nature connection as the diverse ways in which people have meaningful experiences with the living world that have positive impacts on their wellbeing and the environment. Definitions related to nature connection can cover mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual engagement and activities can take place in any setting. We have listed a few key definitions below that fall in the realm of nature connection; while they cannot necessarily be used interchangeably, there are key converging themes focused on learning from nature.

Land-Based Education and Traditional Indigenous Approaches

Land-based learning uses an Indigenized and environmentally focused approach to education by first recognizing the deep, physical, mental, and spiritual connection to the living world that is a part of Indigenous cultures. – Cherpako, 2019

Land-based learning centers Indigeneity, honoring Indigenous relationships with the living world and recognizing the living world as a sentient being with spiritual, emotional, intellectual, and physical aspects. It emphasizes Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and thinking, countering the erasure of Indigenous histories perpetuated by place-based education. – Bowra et al., 2021

Land education puts Indigenous epistemological and ontological accounts of land at the center, including Indigenous understandings of land, Indigenous language in relation to land, and Indigenous critiques of settler colonialism. It attends to constructions and storying of land and repatriation by Indigenous peoples, documenting and advancing Indigenous agency and land rights. – Tuck et al., 2014

Connection to the living world is crucial to physical, mental, social, and spiritual wellness for all people. As Indigenous communities are disproportionately experiencing the effects of climate change and continue to be faced with colonial disruption to their connection with land, Indigenous-led land-based education is being used to “re-engage Indigenous youth in their own education, build community connectedness, and revitalize Indigenous languages and practices” (Cherpako, 2019). Culturally relevant methods of teaching are used by Indigenous educators, including Elders and knowledge-keepers, to ensure authenticity and opportunity for relational teachings (Cherpako, 2019). By valuing and incorporating these connections, educators can contribute to more inclusive, respectful, and effective educational practices that benefit all students.

Place-Based Education

Immer[sing] students in local heritage, cultures, landscapes, opportunities, and experiences, using these as a foundation for the study of subjects across a curriculum. – (Centre for Place-based education at Antioch University) Ark et al., 2020

A situated, context-rich, transdisciplinary teaching and learning modality distinguished by its unequivocal relationship to place, which is any locality that people have imbued with meanings and personal attachments through actual or vicarious experiences. – Semken et al., 2017

A system of white settler supremacy, through capitalistic structuring of society and the economization of everything, works to alienate people from a healthy relationship with the natural world and local places. Healthy, sustainable, and reciprocal relationships to the social geography we are emplaced in have been bastardized, corrupted, and perverted by the same systems that let capital, competition, and private property define life. If we desire to foster socially just ecological education than there must be awareness of the politics of place and the politics of self that challenge that future. Place-based education carries the capacity to center epistemology within a process of pushing settler society away from ecological damage and racial and gender supremacy and toward the cultivation of a healthy reciprocal relationship with the natural world. – Seawright, 2014

Distinguishing Between Land- and Place-Based Education

Authors such as Bowra et al. (2021) differentiate land-based learning and place-based learning as being rooted in different pedagogies. Place-based education, they note, tends to focus on teaching about and within the local community, connecting people with the outdoors, and is prevalent in disciplines like physical education, natural sciences, and engineering. However, it does not connect the place with Indigenous history, knowledge, or stories, nor does it acknowledge that all places are Indigenous lands. Instead, it moves Western education curricula outdoors without incorporating spiritual or emotional connections to the surroundings. This distinction highlights the risk of traditional Indigenous knowledge being co-opted by Western systems for capitalistic gain, which undermines and exploits Indigenous knowledge and practices.

This is not to say that place-based education is anyway separable from Indigenous ways – the conceptual link between being and place is an Indigenous principle and is maintained within Indigenous cultural philosophy (Johnson, 2012). However, because each learning program is unique, and some may not focus on Indigenous knowledge at all, it is important to make the distinction that land-based learning focuses on Indigenous-led education (Cherpako, 2019).

Nature Connection

Nature connectedness is the extent to which individuals include nature as part of their identity. – Schultz, 2002

Louv (2008) delivers impactful work on the divide between children and the outdoors, and directly related the lack of nature (nature-deficit) in technologically bound generations to disturbing childhood trends including rises in poor health, attention disorders, and depression. Louv’s book indicates that direct exposure to nature is essential for healthy childhood development and for the physical and emotional health of children and adults. Louv also comments on how the way children understand and experience nature has changed radically over the past few decades. Where youth are now more aware of global threats to the environment, they have limited physical contact and their intimacy with nature is fading. Nature connection aims to foster and build this intimacy through creating unique experiences and relationships between humans and the natural world.

Nature connectedness is a psychological construct that describes an individual’s relationship with nature, encompassing how we think about nature, our emotional relationship with it, and the extent to which we see ourselves as part of nature. This construct can be measured using psychometric scales, and research suggests it can be enhanced through well-designed interventions that encourage engagement with nature. – Richardson et al., 2020

Wild Pedagogies

Wild pedagogies are about rethinking our relationships within the world and represent a desire to let go of an overabundant sense of control, to invite the places we visit to become an integral part of our work, and to respond to provocations in spontaneous, and at times unforeseen, ways. – Morse et al., 2018

Wild pedagogies are an educational approach that emphasizes learning through direct engagement with the natural world. (Morse et al., 2018). This pedagogy moves beyond traditional, classroom-based education, encouraging experiential, hands-on learning in outdoor environments. Nature connection through wild pedagogies addresses not only educational development but also emotional and relational well-being. Educators who understand and implement wild pedagogies can create learning experiences that nurture the whole student.

The emergence of wild pedagogies began in Canada and since 2014, has been supported by a growing group of educators from across the world (Jickling et al., 2023). The foundation and purpose for wild pedagogies is that our modernist relationship to the natural world must urgently change in the face of the environmental crisis, and education is a fundamental aspect of this change (Jickling et al., 2023). Wild pedagogies form a convergence about wildness, education, and the realities of responding to modern challenges (Morse et al., 2018).

The intensity of sustainability changes we are currently facing call for an overhaul of the dominant pedagogies and restrictive learning styles that define higher education, so educators and students are better equipped to manage “accelerating change, increasing complexity, contested knowledge claims and inevitable uncertainty” (Lotz-Sisitka et al., 2015). Wild pedagogies as a term encompasses many practices that educators are already undertaking including teaching outside of mainstream classroom environments, involving social justice issues, connection with community through education projects, introducing cross-cultural experiences, and focusing on context in a given place. The commonality that these approaches share is the desire to challenge otherwise incomplete, uninspiring, and disconnected educational structures.

A challenge that wild pedagogies face, and one that may even stop educators from pursuing a place-based education approach in the first place, is how transformative experiences fit (or do not fit) into prescribed teaching goals in formal topics (Jickling et al., 2023). In post-secondary environments, learning must often serve the purpose of an education process that is measurable, where educators struggle with faculties for control over subject matter. When demands from educational institutions become less rigid, opportunities for immersing students in non-conventional learning environments to broaden their learning will be significantly more attainable.

The wild aspect of wild pedagogies by no means implies unstructured chaos or ‘pointless’ activities (though what counts as having a ‘point’ and to what value can be contested), but more so loosening restrictions on student experience, encouraging nature-led discovery, acting in solidarity with marginalized perspectives, and challenging unsustainable principles in existing academic culture.