Complementing the literature review, we carried out a set of nine interviews with educators to explore educators’ experiences and perspectives on nature connection. This approach allows for an in-depth understanding of personal and contextual factors influencing nature connection in post-secondary education settings. Purposive sampling was used to select participants who are adult educators from a variety of settings, mostly in post-secondary institutions. Efforts were made to include educators from diverse cultural backgrounds to capture a range of experiences with and perspectives on nature connection. Participant identities have been anonymized and alphabetically labeled with no specific order.

Educators who engaged students in nature connection based programs shared numerous benefits and positive impacts of their activities. Participant B shared that being in nature had students changing their perspectives on what we take for granted in the natural world. Participant F shared that through a creative medium focused on centering nature as a topic, students became more articulate about lessons they took away. Furthermore, participant G highlighted that many students identified outdoor time as some of their best experiences because they felt more connected, reset, and calm. From an academic perspective, some educators expressed that by immersing students in real positions to understand climate change issues, they were able to build more tangible relationships with their community and look toward solving issues in a meaningful way.

The following sections highlight key themes from our interviews in connection to nature-based education.

Theme One: Fostering Relationship-Building

In our interviews with educators who integrate nature connection in their teaching, one key priority that we heard consistently was having students build relationships with the living world around them. The majority of educators mentioned wanting students to understand that all living beings are part of a system that creates community, and that the natural world is a place they can form personal relationships with. One interviewee also highlighted that building relationships creates awareness and different ways of understanding how humans interact with the natural world.

“Relationships need to be fed in order to help others nurture relationships.” – Participant B

“Recognizing all these complex relationships in nature helps us recognize all the complex relationships between humans and the geopolitics of humans.” – Participant D

Interview participants also emphasized the importance of building authentic relationships with Indigenous communities and Elders to co-create learning experiences. When educators were able to connect with leaders in the community and build relationships to co-create and co-teach core values of place-based education and land-based education, the value of experiences was significantly enriched.

“I really focus on relationships here because it’s not just people providing a service, right? You really have to sit down, get to know the people that will be delivering the living world-based learning and understand the benefits for you as an instructor, but also what are the benefits for them? Is this going to actually do something for them, for their growth as an organization or what they want to do with land-based learning, or is it going to take away from them? So really figuring that out and getting to know each other is important. It’s so much more than just hiring somebody to come and do something for your class.” – Participant E

Interview responses reflected a strong focus on reconnecting with nature in educational settings. Participants emphasized the significance of the living world as a source of knowledge and learning and actively encourage students to engage with the environment through activities grounded in recognizing and appreciating the natural elements.

“I acknowledge the fact that not everyone will be happy with some of the work that I’m doing. But it’s also really, really important for people who are settlers to reconnect to this idea of land in order to understand better the importance and the role Indigenous people have in stewarding the living world and have had stewarding the living world.” – Participant C

“There needs to be a relationship, spend time out there and feel where you’re being pulled or who wants to connect with you in the plant world, in the tree world. I think when we teach these things, the energy that we carry forward in this is serious.” – Participant F

“I think if a person wants to connect with Indigenous people, there are ways to do it. But there are so many nuances too because I think it really also depends on if a person wants to reach out, who’s in their community, how does their community think? If their community and they are thinking in a way that continues to block Indigenous presence, then it’s going to be more difficult. But if they’re thinking in a way that starts to open that up, there’s always ways to connect with anyone, whether they’re Indigenous or not.” – Participant F

Theme Two: Empowering Student Agency

Another key focus of participant responses was on providing opportunities for students to take ownership of their learning, develop practical skills, and create actionable plans for decolonizing their practice. Student agency was highlighted as a crucial aspect of place-based education as it focuses on student-led engagement which creates a more meaningful long-term connection with course material.

“By inviting students to think about these kinds of topics and think about them critically, we’re empowering them to go on and be able to address these issues in the future. And I think that’s really important because we need to build that capacity for students to be able to engage in these difficult conversations and to be able to think critically about these issues.” – Participant I

A common goal among numerous educators was to have students feel more comfortable approaching more complex issues in nature-based learning. Participant A explained how they try to show vulnerability and honesty to help students feel more confident in themselves.

Interview responses presented student empowerment as a key opportunity for addressing some of the challenges facing place-based education spaces. Encouraging students to critically reflect on their roles and responsibilities in addressing colonial legacies and environmental challenges can drive change at community and organizational levels. Equipping students with the tools and knowledge to advocate for social and environmental justice in their communities will broaden experiences, mindsets, and attitudes toward the potentials of place-based education.

Theme Three: Promoting Critical Reflection

Our interviews with educators had a major focus on encouraging students to critically analyze historical and contemporary issues, particularly regarding colonialism and its effects on our disciplinary knowledge, fields of study, and ways of knowing. Having curriculum that centers around Indigenous values provides students a pathway to thinking about how certain values relate to the context they are working in, and how colonial structures may be violating them.

“[Each] module is centered around one of those [Indigenous] values. Then, the student actually has to think about those values in relation to how colonialism violates them. How are they going to try to lift them up in their own life, in their own work? How do they connect? It’s about critically reflecting on the ways that we’re complicit in perpetuating systems of oppression and working to change that.” – Participant H

“I can actually remember the moment when I read a description of a Western white supremacist worldview. And I saw myself and I would like to say that from that moment, I turned my attention to and tried to think critically about both the education and experience and privilege that I’d been steeped in.” – Participant D

From the interview participants who are actively involved in the place-based education space, integrating multiple disciplines and perspectives to provide holistic understandings of complex issues is a core practice that they uphold to create holistic experiences for their students. Acknowledging the interconnectedness of social, environmental, and cultural factors allows them to learn from the place respectfully and appropriately they are in.

“Environmental issues do not care about our creations, about how we separate things.” – Participant H

Participant B and C express a desire for students to take away an understanding of seeing the living world and all the living beings that are part of the connected systems in their communities by shifting their awareness toward the natural world.

“Having access to this beautiful, natural environment, I was introduced to the work of some folks locally there who had dedicated themselves to relationship building [with plants and animals]. This was different to outdoor education, as I had understood it. We weren’t just taking kids outdoors and teaching them the names of the plants and the animals.” – Participant D

Theme Four: Cultivating Cultural Responsiveness

A core theme identified by interview participants is the need to encourage students to engage with their own cultural heritage and learn about the cultural context of the communities they serve. By understanding the histories and realities of the communities in which place-based education and land-based education take place, educators and students alike create more respectful and inclusive education collaborations.

“One of the central pieces [to place-based education] is trying to help students understand their own positionality in the world—so, understanding their own cultural background, their own history, the privileges, and power dynamics that are at play within their own lives, but then also understanding the communities that they’re serving. [This implies] understanding the cultural context of those communities, the historical context, the systemic and structural factors that are impacting those communities, and how all of that intersects with their own identities and their own positions within the world.” – Participant I

“It’s about understanding the histories and the realities of the communities in which we work. And it’s not about just understanding the realities from a surface level, but really digging deep and understanding what the root causes are of some of the issues that communities are facing.” – Participant E

“And that’s been a journey for me as well – understanding your own culture and history and then understanding where other people are coming from. So, I think it’s a mix of understanding who you are and then understanding the system that you’re working in.” – Participant D

“You don’t have to be exactly the same as someone else to walk the same path on this earth, but a certain recognition of where we all come from is important.” – Participant C

Theme Five: Centering Indigenous Knowledge and Perspectives

Through the course of the participant interviews, a core theme of incorporating Indigenous knowledge systems, perspectives, and voices into curriculum was identified. Interviewees emphasized the importance of recognizing and understanding land and history from Indigenous perspectives.

Indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing were identified as foundational parts of the work that that educators were undertaking in place-based education and land-based education. Participants asserted that to truly be strong in this field of education, we must be grounded in who we are as people and recognize that many of the teachings center around Indigenous values and ways of knowing.

“I see Indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing as being foundational to who we are as human beings. It’s about going back to the roots and saying, okay, we need to actually recognize that there are different ways of knowing and different ways of being. And so by doing that, we can move beyond this kind of Western-centric way of seeing the world and start to understand that there are other ways of seeing the world that can be equally valuable.” – Participant I

“The values of a Two Row wampum [are] truth, peace, friendship, respect. The Anishinaabe teacher who helped co-create the course […] talks about it as kindness, honesty, sharing and strength. When you don’t have those things, you don’t have strength. And so, [each] module is centered around one of those values. Then, the student actually has to think about those values in relation to how colonialism violates them.” – Participant H

From the interviewees’ perspectives, a key element of place-based education and land-based education is critically examining colonial legacies and their impact on social structures and relationships. Participants believe that educators and students need to challenge dominant narratives and perspectives by foregrounding Indigenous experiences. They also emphasized that making mistakes when navigating decolonial work and admitting them helps students feel more comfortable in their learning journey.

“Students are generally scared about cultural appropriation and about doing something that isn’t respectful. So, the [sharing of an element of Indigenous culture] group project assignment is really important so that they’re learning how to teach Indigenous culture respectfully.” – Participant A

Educators are working on how to more deliberately and explicitly engage in navigating decolonial work with their students by thinking critically about their own education, experience, and privilege.

“I spent some time with an Indigenous elder and asked about how best I could work with being a white male settler, how best I could work with the living world. And she said, build your fire and they will come.” – Participant C

Another crucial element of navigating colonial structures in the process of nature connection education is finding ways to incorporate accountability while building decolonial perspectives in a way that students can relate to and understand in the context of different Indigenous peoples.