education for the phrase “learning by doing”). In short, meliorism entails a trust in
the possibility of humans’ ability to improve the world through knowledge and
collaboration, step-by-step, evaluating and improving situations as they unfold
(Metzger 2018).
8 Concluding Remarks: From Onlookers to Ecosystem
Assistants?
What happens in outdoor education when we turn children from “onlookers” to
“ecosystem assistants”? In this chapter, we have discussed the role of direct encounters and sensory experiences in fostering children’s understanding of and interest in
biodiversity. We have introduced the Skolbäcken project as an example that brings
the global and vast problem of biodiversity loss into the realm of children’s experiences and reach—here illustrated by children giving a nickname to a 63 cm long
pike migrating towards her spawning grounds on a cold April morning. The encounters between schoolchildren and the pike at the restored wetland are arranged with
the hope of helping children understand ecological relationships and their own
potential role in improving them. We call this combination of outdoor education
and ecological restoration Ecological Restoration Education. We identify ERE as a
promising concept and practice, albeit one that requires more research attention in
order to better understand its potential socio-ecological effects.
We believe the idea of fostering “nature encounters” is an important point of
departure if one wishes to stimulate children’s interest in and relations to other
species and to “nature” in a wider sense. Within the field of human geography, the
notion of encounters has been discussed in terms of “meetings where difference is
somehow noteworthy” (Wilson 2017, p. 464). Wilson particularly stresses the
“transformative capacity” of encounters that for better and worse always, and in
myriads of more or less predictable ways, make “[a] difference”. In an educational
setting such as Skolbäcken, this entails openness to what encounters, such as the one
between the children, the pike and the wetland, might lead to. Encounters can be
anything from enlightening, frightening, surprising and boring, but never meaningless. In the case of Skolbäcken, the encounters between children, the habitat/landscape and pike inevitably make a difference for all the involved parts: in the
children’s experience, in the configuration of stones and water flows, in the possibility of pike to spawn, etc. Exactly where this 2-h encounter in the wetland has
taken the children and pikes is (still) unknown. Life is full of ambiguity and surprise,
and the encounter with “Martha-Humlan” may have awoken more feelings and
commitments in the children than was apparent in their responses to the evaluators.
We believe that there are plenty of good reasons to stay attuned to encounters, in
whatever shape they appear.
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M. Sandberg and A. S. Hansen
the possibility of humans’ ability to improve the world through knowledge and
collaboration, step-by-step, evaluating and improving situations as they unfold
(Metzger 2018).
8 Concluding Remarks: From Onlookers to Ecosystem
Assistants?
What happens in outdoor education when we turn children from “onlookers” to
“ecosystem assistants”? In this chapter, we have discussed the role of direct encounters and sensory experiences in fostering children’s understanding of and interest in
biodiversity. We have introduced the Skolbäcken project as an example that brings
the global and vast problem of biodiversity loss into the realm of children’s experiences and reach—here illustrated by children giving a nickname to a 63 cm long
pike migrating towards her spawning grounds on a cold April morning. The encounters between schoolchildren and the pike at the restored wetland are arranged with
the hope of helping children understand ecological relationships and their own
potential role in improving them. We call this combination of outdoor education
and ecological restoration Ecological Restoration Education. We identify ERE as a
promising concept and practice, albeit one that requires more research attention in
order to better understand its potential socio-ecological effects.
We believe the idea of fostering “nature encounters” is an important point of
departure if one wishes to stimulate children’s interest in and relations to other
species and to “nature” in a wider sense. Within the field of human geography, the
notion of encounters has been discussed in terms of “meetings where difference is
somehow noteworthy” (Wilson 2017, p. 464). Wilson particularly stresses the
“transformative capacity” of encounters that for better and worse always, and in
myriads of more or less predictable ways, make “[a] difference”. In an educational
setting such as Skolbäcken, this entails openness to what encounters, such as the one
between the children, the pike and the wetland, might lead to. Encounters can be
anything from enlightening, frightening, surprising and boring, but never meaningless. In the case of Skolbäcken, the encounters between children, the habitat/landscape and pike inevitably make a difference for all the involved parts: in the
children’s experience, in the configuration of stones and water flows, in the possibility of pike to spawn, etc. Exactly where this 2-h encounter in the wetland has
taken the children and pikes is (still) unknown. Life is full of ambiguity and surprise,
and the encounter with “Martha-Humlan” may have awoken more feelings and
commitments in the children than was apparent in their responses to the evaluators.
We believe that there are plenty of good reasons to stay attuned to encounters, in
whatever shape they appear.
228
M. Sandberg and A. S. Hansen