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Abstract
Taking young people to polar regions for outdoor and environmental education purposes is becoming increasingly popular. Programmes such as Students on Ice and others seek to provide opportunities for young people to learn about the Arctic and Antarctica through direct experience and via their engagement with scientists and educators. These programmes are expensive and require significant organisation and support and, thus, they represent a major investment in the young people involved. The expected return on this investment is that youth will become strong advocates for the polar regions and that their experiences will be, potentially, life shaping or life changing. Given the investment, it is surprising that there is no published empirical research about the experiences of adolescents on these programmes. This paper reports on the experiences of 12 New Zealand teenagers who were selected to participate in the 2014 Young Blake Expedition to the sub-Antarctic Auckland Islands. The research uses auto-driven photo-elicitation as a tool to provide insights into the most important experiences of these young people. Findings reveal that five interrelated themes emerged from the data: experiential learning; uniqueness of the setting; uniqueness of the experience; sharing with others; adventure; and sense of accomplishment. These findings are consistent with previous research on the experiences of adolescent participants in other wilderness-based outdoor education programmes.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by (all New Zealand based organizations): The Sir Peter Blake Trust, New Zealand Antarctic Research Institute, Department of Conservation, Royal New Zealand Navy, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, Ministry for Youth Affairs, Ministry for the Environment, Ministry of Education, Auckland University of Technology and the University of Otago. Thanks to all Student Voyagers for their support and involvement in the research and to Sarah Wakeford for assistance with interpreting data. This project was conducted according to the research ethics principles and guidelines and with the formal approval of the Auckland University of Technology Research Ethics Committee. The manuscript was improved as a consequence of amendments made from two anonymous referees.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Anderson et al., “Creating Positive Change”; Ewert and Sibthorp, “Outdoor Adventure Education”; Neill, “Impacts of Outdoor Education”; Prouty et al., “Adventure Education”; Neill and Richards, “Outdoor Education”; and Bogner, “Influence of Residential Outdoor Education.”
2 Ibid., 1.
3 E.g. Students on Ice: www.studentsonice.com; the Antarctic Youth Ambassador programme: www.sirpeterblaketrust.org; and the Youth Environmental Ambassadors Program: www.biosphere-ed.org/yeap/.
4 See: www.sirpeterblaketrust.org.
5 Peat, “Subantarctic New Zealand.”
6 See Campbell and Rudge, “Vegetation Changes Induced Over Ten Years by Goats and Pigs at Port Ross, Auckland Islands (Subantarctic),” 103–8 and Peat, “Subantarctic New Zealand”.
7 See McGlone et al., “Lateglacial and Holocene Vegetation and Climatic Change on Auckland Island, Subantarctic New Zealand,” 719–28.
8 See: New Zealand Antarctic Research Institute: www.nzari.aq.
9 See: Sir Peter Blake Trust: www.sirpeterblaketrust.org.
10 See Sefton, The Last Great Adventure of Sir Peter Blake.
11 See Bogner, “The Influence of a Residential Outdoor Education Programme to Pupil’s Environmental Perception”, 19–34; Davidson, “Qualitative Research and Making Meaning from Adventure: A Case Study of Boys' Experiences of Outdoor Education at School,” 11–20; Garst et al., “Outdoor Adventure Program Participation Impacts on Adolescent Self-Perception,” 41–9; Smith et al., “Engaging Adolescent Participants in Academic Research: The Use of Photo-Elicitation Interviews to Evaluate School-Based Outdoor Education Programme”; and Wray et al., “Cultural Clash: Interpreting Established Use and New Tourism Activities in Protected Natural Areas”, 272–90.
12 See Schanzel and Smith, “Photography and Children: Auto-Driven Photo-Elicitation,” 81–5.
13 Banks, Visual Methods in Social Research; Harper, “Talking About Pictures: A Case for Photo Elicitation,” 13–26; Hunter, “A Typology of Photographic Representations for Tourism: Depictions of Groomed Spaces,” 354–365; and Schanzel and Smith, “Photography and Children: Auto-Driven Photo-Elicitation,” 81–85.
14 Prosser, Image-Based Research: A Sourcebook for Qualitative Researchers; Prosser and Schwartz, “Photographs Within the Sociological Research Process,” 115–30; and Stanczak, Visual Research Methods: Image, Society, and Representation.
15 See Loeffler, “A Photo Elicitation Study of the Meanings of Outdoor Adventure Experiences,” 536; Smith et al., “Engaging Adolescent Participants in Academic Research: The Use of Photo-Elicitation Interviews to Evaluate School-Based Outdoor Education Programme.”
16 See Rakić and Chambers, An Introduction to Visual Research Methods in Tourism; and Robinson and Picard, The Framed World: Tourism, Tourists and Photography.
17 Ibid., 16.
18 Smith et al., “Engaging Adolescent Participants in Academic Research: The Use of Photo-Elicitation Interviews to Evaluate School-Based Outdoor Education Programme.”
19 Banks, Visual Methods in Social Research and See Schanzel and Smith, “Photography and Children: Auto-Driven Photo-Elicitation,” 81–85.
20 Rakić and Chambers, An Introduction to Visual Research Methods in Tourism and Ibid., 16–26.
21 Stanczak, Visual Research Methods: Image, Society, and Representation.
22 Ibid., 21.
23 Prosser and Schwartz, "Photographs Within the Sociological Research Process", 115–30 and Smith et al., "Engaging Adolescent Participants in Academic Research: The Use of Photo-Elicitation Interviews to Evaluate School-Based Outdoor Education Programme".
24 Following Saldaña, The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers.
25 See Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind.
26 See Hull et al., “Experience Patterns: Capturing the Dynamic Nature of a Recreation Experience,” 240–52 and Haluza-Delay, “The Culture That Constrains: Experience of “Nature” as Part of a Wilderness Adventure Program,” 129–37.
27 See Neuman, Social Research Methods: Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches.
28 See Mcdonald et al., “The Nature of Peak Experience in Wilderness,” 370–85.
29 Garst et al., “Outdoor Adventure Program Participation Impacts on Adolescent Self-Perception”, 41–9; Hattie et al., “Adventure Education and Outward Bound: Out-Of-Class Experiences That Make a Lasting Difference”, 43–87; Liddicoat and Krasny, “Memories as Useful Outcomes of Residential Outdoor Environmental Education”, 178–93; Loeffler, “A Photo Elicitation Study of the Meanings of Outdoor Adventure Experiences”, 536; Paxton and Mcavoy, “Social Psychological Benefits of a Wilderness Adventure Program”, 23–7; and Wray et al., “Cultural Clash: Interpreting Established Use and New Tourism Activities in Protected Natural Areas”, 272–90.
30 See Louv, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder.
31 See Louv, The Nature Principle: Human Restoration and The End Of Nature-Deficit Disorder; Scott et al., “Changing Spaces, Changing Relationships: The Positive Impact of Learning Out of Doors,” 47; and Oberbillig et al., “Outdoor Learning in Formal Ecological Education: Looking to the Future,” 419–20.
32 Wakeford, “The Motivations, Expectations and Experiences of Secondary School Students Involved in Volunteer Tourism: A Case Study of the Rangitoto College Cambodia House Building Trip.”
33 Packard, “‘I'm Gonna Show You What it's Really Like Out Here’: The Power and Limitation of Participatory Visual Methods,” 63–77.