A 30-year retrospective study of the impact of outdoor education upon adolescent participants : salient lessons from the field

In this paper, I have inductively generated a list of facilitation tips that were learnt from leading Wilderness Studies classes over three decades ago. The study provided a portrait of those aspects of the outdoor learning experience most valued and salient to former participants, even many years after the experience. Although the study examines a small pool of subjects, the extremely long tail of the Wilderness Studies experience is suggestive and invites more rigorous study. Certainly, the messages that came through from the interviews about facilitation, the subtle and nuanced way that these experiences left lasting impressions on participants, highlights the importance of providing OE opportunities. One of the surprising findings was that, with a systematic examination of the impact of OE participation 30 years after program completion, so many former participants kept their logbooks as memorials to their experience.