What Can Environmental History Offer Outdoor Education Practitioners?

The landscape can be seen as a site, a background or a focus for Outdoor Education. Whichever is the case for any particular event, there are strong connections between the practices of Outdoor Education and the land. These can be enhanced by incorporating environmental history into our knowledge, skills and actions. Australians in general have a very tentative grasp of those aspects of hurnan/nature relationships that are about the role of time and human presence as manifested in the landscape. Some Outdoor Education practice actively discourages development of better understanding of these relationships through over- emphasis on wild or pristine places. This paper argues that we can not only enhance the experiences of our participants and minimise our impacts on the land, but also develop our political role in land use and management decisions through a stronger focus on environmental history as it can be seen in both ‘every day’ and ‘wild’ landscapes.