environments introduced above, reported great joy and enthusiasm associated with
the practical activities in Skolbäcken. The children enjoyed carrying heavy stones
and showing personal strength, running with spruce branches across the lake ice and
throwing stones into streams, all during school hours!
Teachers were found to particularly appreciate the engagement of the educators
representing the Swedish Anglers Association, especially because of their shared
passion for the topic. The teachers also welcomed the possibility of combining
several different school subjects, including biology, physical education and health,
geography, maths, history and language. In follow-up interviews, one teacher
highlighted the challenges involved in promoting outdoor education by emphasising
how a large proportion of her teaching time is devoted to preparing for national tests
(Sandberg and Hansen 2018). In this context, the opportunity to spend time outdoors
and share pedagogical responsibilities with the educators was particularly
welcomed.
Whether Skolbäcken heightened the children’s awareness of, and engagement in,
fish habitats and their protection (one of the motives for running the project), is more
difficult to ascertain. By participating in restoration work, the children engaged with
their local environment in a manner that was different from what they are used to
during school hours or with friends and family. However, in the follow-up interviews, the impression was that the children have a rather unsentimental attitude to
their own contributions in assisting the pike populations. It seemed fun to help out,
but perhaps no more than that. It appeared that the children may not ascribe value to
either was being said (although they were able to recall most of the information), or
to being assigned the role of “environmental heroes” (Sandberg and Hansen 2018).
Further studies on this are required.
7 From Skolbäcken to “Ecological Restoration Education”
We argue that the explicit focus on ecological restoration as a teaching method sets
Skolbäcken apart from many other outdoor education programs in Sweden. We call
this promising pedagogical approach and method “Ecological Restoration Education” (ERE). There are several contemporary and historical examples of
schoolchildren doing gardening, tree-planting and picking litter etc. from around
the world (e.g. Kardell 2004; Cruz and Segura 2010; Cramer 2008; Knackmuhs et al.
2017). However, these examples are often small in scale, poorly documented, and
with a few exceptions, one-off projects. Overall, then, the ERE initiatives appears to
hold great promise, but there remains a need for further conceptualisation and
evaluation.
As mentioned earlier, ERE is an amalgamation of “ecological restoration” and
“outdoor education”. While ecological restoration has a long history in practice, the
concept itself was not commonly used until the foundation of the Society for
Ecological Restoration in the late 1980s. Ecological restoration is commonly defined
as: “. . .the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded,
226
M. Sandberg and A. S. Hansen
the practical activities in Skolbäcken. The children enjoyed carrying heavy stones
and showing personal strength, running with spruce branches across the lake ice and
throwing stones into streams, all during school hours!
Teachers were found to particularly appreciate the engagement of the educators
representing the Swedish Anglers Association, especially because of their shared
passion for the topic. The teachers also welcomed the possibility of combining
several different school subjects, including biology, physical education and health,
geography, maths, history and language. In follow-up interviews, one teacher
highlighted the challenges involved in promoting outdoor education by emphasising
how a large proportion of her teaching time is devoted to preparing for national tests
(Sandberg and Hansen 2018). In this context, the opportunity to spend time outdoors
and share pedagogical responsibilities with the educators was particularly
welcomed.
Whether Skolbäcken heightened the children’s awareness of, and engagement in,
fish habitats and their protection (one of the motives for running the project), is more
difficult to ascertain. By participating in restoration work, the children engaged with
their local environment in a manner that was different from what they are used to
during school hours or with friends and family. However, in the follow-up interviews, the impression was that the children have a rather unsentimental attitude to
their own contributions in assisting the pike populations. It seemed fun to help out,
but perhaps no more than that. It appeared that the children may not ascribe value to
either was being said (although they were able to recall most of the information), or
to being assigned the role of “environmental heroes” (Sandberg and Hansen 2018).
Further studies on this are required.
7 From Skolbäcken to “Ecological Restoration Education”
We argue that the explicit focus on ecological restoration as a teaching method sets
Skolbäcken apart from many other outdoor education programs in Sweden. We call
this promising pedagogical approach and method “Ecological Restoration Education” (ERE). There are several contemporary and historical examples of
schoolchildren doing gardening, tree-planting and picking litter etc. from around
the world (e.g. Kardell 2004; Cruz and Segura 2010; Cramer 2008; Knackmuhs et al.
2017). However, these examples are often small in scale, poorly documented, and
with a few exceptions, one-off projects. Overall, then, the ERE initiatives appears to
hold great promise, but there remains a need for further conceptualisation and
evaluation.
As mentioned earlier, ERE is an amalgamation of “ecological restoration” and
“outdoor education”. While ecological restoration has a long history in practice, the
concept itself was not commonly used until the foundation of the Society for
Ecological Restoration in the late 1980s. Ecological restoration is commonly defined
as: “. . .the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded,
226
M. Sandberg and A. S. Hansen