Bringing learning to life with experiential education

 I've worked in the experiential education realm my entire career. My specific focus is on outdoor and travel education. I've had the privilege to facilitate challenge courses, lead backpacking, kayaking, rafting, canoeing, cycling, sailing, and walking adventures, and introduce students to life in other countries like England, Italy, Portugal, Costa Rica, and Mexico. I never get tired of it. Experiential education is the "learning by doing" we all crave deep inside. It is active, hands-on, engaged, reflective, and iterative. It allows us to experiment, to create prototypes and test them, and to learn by failing and trying again. It can be applied to almost any academic discipline. (I say almost because I can't imagine what an experiential lesson on nuclear particle physics might look like...) 

In collaboration with faculty members across my campus, I've combined my background and training in outdoor education to help them bring subjects such as biological illustration, geology, tropical ecology, writing, and community service to life. I've been incredibly fortunate to have the flexibility to create these learning experiences and such keen collaborators who believe in the power of experiential education. I never tire of seeing students' faces light up as they take a calculated learning risk, which pays off - practicing canoe strokes, hoisting a sail, developing a community action plan, and learning about watersheds. 

I always advocate for more experiential learning opportunities in our age of "over teched" and screen-focused learning. Yes, they take a little more time to plan. Yes, they require collaboration across disciplines. Yet, they are more memorable experiences that impact student learning outcomes. The challenge for us as educators is to strengthen the muscles of experiential curriculum development. As administrators, the challenge is to interpret policies and practices so that they support these out-of-the-box adventures. 

Once, on a road trip through Death Valley, the Mojave Desert, and Joshua Tree National Park, a small group of my students was working on preparing dinner over the camp stove. As they cooked, one student noticed that the fuel canister started to develop a layer of frost despite the desert heat we were experiencing. Curious, they asked another student why that was the case. Without missing a beat, the student replied that it resulted from an endothermic reaction and that the temperature change could be measured using the formula ..... That moment stays in my mind and makes me smile occasionally.

What kinds of experiential learning opportunities did you have as a student? What stood out about them?

What kinds of experiential learning opportunities have you facilitated as an educator? What made them powerful?