WILDWISE: HOW NATURE CHANGES PEOPLE
Date & Time
Thu 24th Oct 2019
9:30 am - 4:30 pm
Location
Categories
How nature changes people: Understanding the benefits of connection
Nature connection has been shown to have positive effects on human wellbeing, and it can help to encourage people to live more sustainably. But how can you know if the environmental education activities you run as a practitioner are effective in making a lasting difference? Whether you want to demonstrate the impact of your work to funders or potential collaborators, or you just want to improve the way in which you deliver outdoor education activities, this one day course will give you a range of skills to understand and describe the impact that nature connection has for the people you work with.
This course will introduce some techniques and tools for measuring the impact of nature connection,
and will explore some different ways of understanding the quality of people’s experiences in nature.
It will also examine some of the most recent academic thinking on nature connection, wellbeing and sustainability, equipping you to be confident in talking to sometimes sceptical audiences about the benefits of spending time outdoors.
During the day you will:
● Explore your personal experiences of nature, wellbeing and sustainability
● Learn about the most commonly used measures of nature connection
● Develop skills to delve into people’s experiences of spending time in nature
● And gain a broad overview of contemporary academic research and thinking about how spending time in nature changes us
Please note that this course is not wholly classroom based, and doesn’t require any previous academic knowledge!
Course tutor: Dru Jaeger
Dru is a researcher, writer and explorer. Alongside a career in health and social care policy, he gained a masters degree in environment and sustainability, and was awarded a distinction for his research on the effects of people’s experiences of places in nature. He has helped support WildWise’s Call of the Wild and Tending the Green Fire programmes, and he is passionate about nature and human wellbeing.