Geography And Outdoor Education: The Importance Of Outdoor Education

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One of the main focus of geography as a discipline is the study of place. It is very common among individuals that when an object, an event or even a word is used repeatedly it loses its value or meaning, unfortunately place is no exception (Tuan,1977). The word place has become so familiar that rarely do people take time to think what it actually means and perhaps consider its importance. In his attempt to differentiate two familiar words that are used interchangeable space and place, Tuan (1979) defines places as spaces which people occupy and over long periods of time grow attached to and have better understanding of.
Different scholars have also tried to define what place is. These varied from place being described as a centre of meaning …show more content…

Outdoor education is basically learning that is conducted outside the classroom, where learners get to not only develop their cognitive skills but also get to have personal interaction with both the natural and human environment (Katsamagka, 2013). One way of doing outdoor education is taking learners to a field trip. On the field trip, learners can be taken to visit places like where they are shown caves and rocks with paintings drawn by people from previous centuries. They would get to understand how those people interacted with each other and some of their beliefs and how they viewed the places they lived in. What is more interesting is that the places that display these rocks or gives this information has people who care about them and have high sensitivity to the place. For example visitors are not allowed to touch the paintings on the rocks because they might remove the painting; that on its own shows being sensitive to place and understanding its value.
Learners can also visit different communities and get to ask individuals questions that would reflect on their sense of place. For example ask individuals what they would do and how they would feel if a new development were to happen in the area they live in. From looking at the different answers and people’s reactions learners would then get a clear understanding of what sensitivity to place

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