Outdoor Education

The School of Environment & Sustainability (SEaS) micro-credential in Outdoor Education within the Environmental Studies (EVST) Program.

Outdoor Education is the study of the abiotic and biotic environmental elements in the natural setting and “includes earth education, bio-regional education, expedition learning and expansion training, ecological education, natural awareness, natural experience, local-based teaching and education, and the use of environmental materials as learning to integrate the local environment” (Fang et al., 2023). Through immersive teaching in the living laboratory, such as forests, prairies, ponds, streams, urban gardens, and city parks, outdoor educators can ignite inquisitiveness, inspire exploratory abilities, and improve learning efficiency.

As a dynamic, multisensory classroom, nature activates curiosity, the fundamental key to learning, and directly engages learners in the subject. Students learn more through experience, where they transform concepts into practical knowledge and demonstrate highly desirable and transferable problem-solving, career-readying skills. Most importantly, learning opportunities outside the classroom foster more attitude and behavioral changes than in the classroom alone. Hands-on lessons will reinforce knowledge and foster connection and care for nature.

The Outdoor Education micro-credential focuses on select Environmental Studies courses that promote creativity, critical thinking, discovery, and scholarship through self-directed, inquiry-based learning and research in hands-on, experiential courses. Many of these courses provide students with outdoor learning opportunities, where they can hone their skills in keenly observing, identifying, classifying, surveying, and measuring the natural environment, ecosystem processes and functions, abiotic-biotic ecologies, and the human-environment nexus. Moreover, in education, a paradigm shift from directional learning to experiential learning is occurring; yet the curricula do not include outdoor education at UC. An essential gap can be filled with the Outdoor Education micro-credential since it will consist not only of transcripted coursework but also training in at least one naturalist workshop. A second workshop on Inquiry-Based Learning will be mandatory for participants in EnvironMentors but optional for non-participants.

The Outdoor Education Micro-Credential helps support a curricular need for more experiential learning and training in wildlife identification, field measurements, ecological methodologies, and community-based approaches.

Admission Requirements