The Ocean, Blue Spaces and Outdoor Learning

This book explores the educational dimension of people's engagement with the ocean. Across formal, informal, and nonformal learning contexts, it examines how experiences of the ocean and 'blue spaces' help us to understand ourselves, others, and our place within the natural environment, and the place of the ocean in our sociocultural and political life. Drawing on creative projects from around the world, the book introduces topics as diverse as ocean sailing, migrants' experiences of learning to surf, experiencing seascapes through sounds, and the importance of fostering connections with the sea. It provides examples of innovative teaching and learning practices, and the pedagogical possibilities that engagement with the ocean offers to outdoor studies scholars and practitioners in terms of education, and the enhancement of our well-being and the environment. This is fascinating reading for advanced students, researchers, teachers, and educational practitioners with an interest in outdoor studies, experiential and outdoor learning, leisure and recreation studies, environmental studies, or geography.

Mike Brown is Associate Professor of Outdoor Learning at the Auckland University of Technology (AUT), New Zealand. His research and teaching interests have been in the area of learning in outdoor contexts with a particular focus on the marine environment. He has co-edited Seascapes: Shaped by the Sea (with Barbara Humberstone) and Living with the Sea: Knowledge, Awareness and Action (with Kimberley Peters). He has several commercial maritime qualifications and is an active sailor and kayaker. He serves on the board of several charitable trusts that provide outdoor experiences to young New Zealanders.

Part I: Blue Space: Connections, Community, and Well-being, 1. Surfing, Ocean Identities, and Well-being in Aotearoa New Zealand, 2. Learning to Surf: Women Migrants' Stories of Engaging with the Ocean, 3. Recounting Encounter: Ocean Swimming, Multispecies Ecologies, and More-than-ocean-literacies, 4. Drawn Together by the Sea: Swimming, Waves and Well-being, 5. The Deep Blue: Learning from Wilderness Experiences in Ocean Sailing, 6. Water Symphonies: Teaching Silent Soundscapes and Tranquillity, 7. A Polluted Leisure Pedagogy in Seascape Wastelands, 8. Children's Active Living by the Sea: New Coastal Environments in Denmark, 9. Cultures of Managing Hazard and Play: Guarding Life in the Littoral Zone, Part II: Experiencing Blue Spaces in Educational Settings, 10. Sail Training: Perspectives of Sea Going Staff, 11. Setting Sail to Response-ability: Sail Training through and for the Sea, 12. We Sail for Stories: Fifty Years of the Blue Humanities at Sea Education Association (SEA), 13. All at Sea: Living the Tension of Mobility and Place, 14. Visualising Seascapes: Encounters in Higher Education, 15. Students of the Sea: Tauira O Te Moana, 16. Tena koe (that is you): Meeting the Ocean Dwelling Other