A key part of my personal development as a bushcraft instructor and probably the catalyst to my interest in Bushcraft as a tool in formal education was a project I carried out a few years ago as part of my studies at University;
RESEARCH INTO THE RELEVANCE OF ‘BUSHCRAFT’ WITHIN
REAL WORLD ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION
Indigenous peoples have within the context of their own lifestyles been practicing
‘environmental education’ for thousands of years (Sterling 2001), but although the skills
practiced by indigenous peoples survive in remote areas of the globe those skills have in
our modern society been tagged as ‘bushcraft’ and become little more than an
adventurous free time activity or a topic of interesting TV documentaries. Several case studies have made the observation that the effectiveness of environmental education could be increased by the inclusion of ‘free time’ and adventurous activities
within environmental education programs (Cooper 1998). The purpose of this research was to establish the value of bushcraft within environmental education not only as an additional adventurous element to a program but as a relevant part of a course with appropriate links with the curriculum. As a result of this research it was hoped that a curriculum could be prepared for a number of bushcraft sessions which could be used within formal education to meet some objectives of a course rather than just being an enrichment activity.
The full write up of this project and my conclusions can be found here;
http://www.academia.edu/4748355/RESEARCH_INTO_THE_RELEVANCE_OF_BUSHCRAFT_WITHIN_REAL_WORLD_ENVIRONMENTAL_EDUCATION
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