Come outside and have fun! What is the ‘value’ of a summer holiday event?
By Dawn Preston, Training & Education Officer, Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust
The United Nations Youth Day theme for 2025 is ‘Youth Empowerment for a Sustainable Future’.(1) As outdoor educators we all know the critical importance of this subject and its context of climate change and biodiversity loss, but it doesn’t necessarily shout ‘fun’, does it?
Young people are frequently cited as the hope bringers, problem solvers and ‘eco-warriors’ of the future. Our work is often based on providing the ecological understanding and need for action on behalf of wildlife, the environment and ourselves to give children and young adults the tools they need to build this greener future.
The case has been made that this learning and awareness needs to be supported at appropriate ages and stages of development. David Sobel in ‘Beyond Ecophobia’ (2) sets out a model of which outdoor experiences we should be providing and when, within age and stage categories – from young children fostering empathy for nature, older children exploring, learning about and enjoying being in their local greenspaces through to older children and teenagers taking on more social action whilst exploring further afield.
We still haven’t been talking about fun much though, right? Enjoying being outside and having fun in green and blue spaces is the absolute starting point for all the above, noted on this diagram from the National Outdoor Learning Award (NOLA) (3), an awards programme that promotes self-development, environmental awareness and being part of a community:
Across our Hampshire & Isle of Wight education and engagement team, we are delivering a range of one-off family events over this school summer holiday – from bug hunts, river and pond dipping sessions and bat walks to beach rummages, wild play days and den building, campfire and crafts sessions. All these sessions will have fun and enjoyment as a core aim, so children and young people can learn new skills and knowledge, have some awe and wonder moments when wildlife watching and spend quality time outdoors with family and friends. (4)
Over the 20 years I have been involved in running outdoor and environmental education events, programmes and training it is the memories of children and young people having fun that stay with me and that I share with others, often to make the case that ‘having fun in the outdoors’ is absolutely valid as a planned learning outcome or target!
Recalling working with teenagers and young adults particularly, the unexpected engagement and enjoyment from simple tasks, games and activities continues to surprise me – from the two 16 year old boys chatting and giggling for an hour whilst Nordic slinging to make a pair of friendship bracelets, the NVQ Level 2 and 3 childcare students playing a very extensive and energetic game of capture of the flag in a beautiful Hampshire woodland, to the Junior Leaders of a local Neighbourhood Warden scheme chatting, laughing and working together on a Ready, Steady, Cook! Style campfire challenge, creating a feast for us all to share. Whilst all these moments happened within sessions that met other planned outcomes and objectives, it is the fun and enjoyment that stays in the memory.
We all know there are many and varied barriers to children and young people accessing time to ‘be’, play, learn and explore in good quality green and blue spaces, from traffic and transport, lack of green space provision and costs in time and money. Encapsulating this aspect of societal shift in a heartfelt and impactful way, well respected playworker and author Bob Hughes once stated ‘we have stolen wild time and wild spaces’ from our children. (5) This is a phrase that I keep firmly in my heart and head every day, knowing that providing fun events, sessions and programmes only goes some way to meeting what children and young people need in terms of outdoor play that is unsupervised by adults, but that these still do have value in many ways.
Now we have talked about the fun, let’s think back to our Youth Day theme this week of ‘Youth Empowerment for a Sustainable Future’. How can we find a pathway from having fun and enjoying being in the outdoors to empowering young people?
One of the pitfalls of introducing wider global environmental concerns – climate change, biodiversity and habitat loss – too early in a child’s life is engendering the overwhelming feeling of eco-anxiety. That ‘nature’ and ‘the ‘environment’ are in crisis and can mean fear and scary emotions, so maybe it would be easier to avoid going ‘out there’? That the problems are too large and complex for any one person to tackle or make a difference? There is now a wealth of work by researchers into this complex feeling and set of emotions, delving into what this subset of feelings and attributes is and why it’s important we understand it.
Kurth & Pihkala (6) have identified ‘practical eco-anxiety’ as a driver for personal action & motivation to tackle problems and find the place where we can individually and collectively make a difference. Here at the Trust, we have recognised the need and value of offering ways in which individuals and groups can take action for nature, through our Wilder Communities and other engagement work. (7) That taking part in this action for nature also increases the participants feelings of agency, empowerment, wellbeing and their connection to nature is a win all round.
To the casual observer of our work as professional outdoor educators and instructors, it can look like we are ‘just’ having fun with the groups of children and young people we work with. We all know that we are pulling all the theoretical threads mentioned above together, along with considering health & safety, logistics and the great British weather! We aren’t ‘just’ having fun, but fun is an essential element of what we do – I wish you all a fun and enjoyable summer of brilliant events and programmes!
Find out more about the Trust’s education offer on the website
Footnotes
1. https://www.un.org/en/observances/youth-day
2. David Sobel (2019) Beyond Ecophobia: Reclaiming the Heart in Nature Education Orion
4. https://www.hiwwt.org.uk/events
6. Kurth, C. & Pikhala, P. (2022) Eco-anxiety: What it is and why it matters Frontiers in Psychology
7. https://www.hiwwt.org.uk/team-wilder
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