Playful approaches to outdoor learning: boggarts, bears, and bunny rabbits

This chapter adopts a playful approach to explore outdoor learning for young people, utilizing a fictional story to engage the reader’s attention. It outlines the core concepts of youth work and considers the importance of emotions within outdoor learning. These concepts are then applied to outdoor learning experiences, through an interpretive, hermeneutic process of asking questions and suggesting possible answers. The reader is also encouraged to consider their own interpretations of the story and to consider its potential application within their own practice. The chapter starts and ends with a gentle challenge to readers from one of the characters within the story, aiming to make reading this an interactive, thought-provoking experience, whereby the reader reflects on their own experiences and begins to engage in the wider debate of how to support others to develop an awareness and appreciation of the world around them. It encourages the use of creative, playful activities within outdoor learning and the value of storytelling as a method of engagement. Arguably one of the most dominant underlying assumptions in outdoor learning is the need to be challenged to “step out of your comfort zone.” This chapter offers an alternative perspective and invites the reader to come into a comfortable, safe discursive place and join in a playful exploration of outdoor learning.