Outdoor learning is of critical importance to most NRES disciplines; taking students into the field, allowing them to have a hands-on/reflective experience that shows them the practical side of their likely career path, etc. Support for outdoor learning ebbs and flows across primary, secondary and tertiary education, but in today’s pandemic-impacted world may hold some keys to how we move forward – better than before.

This presentation will explore how and where we might use outdoor learning as a solution to the teaching and learning constraints that are present in higher education today, as a result of the pandemic situation.  A variety of contextual assumptions for NRES disciplines will be explored, as well as threads that could impact broader disciplinary areas. The presentation will likely raise more questions than provide answers, and that’s a good thing.

The Natural Resources & Environmental Studies Institute (NRESi) at UNBC hosts a weekly lecture series at the Prince George campus. Anyone from the university or wider community with interest in the topic area is welcome to attend. Go to http://www.unbc.ca/nres-institute/colloquium-webcasts to view the presentation remotely.

Past NRESi colloquium presentations and special lectures can be viewed on our video archive, available here.