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 socio-cultural 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.
Part I: Blue Space: Connections, Community, and Well-being
1. Surfing, Ocean Identities, and Well-being in Aotearoa New Zealand
Belinda Wheaton
2. Learning to Surf: Women Migrants’ Stories of Engaging with the Ocean
Charlotte Jelleyman and Barbara Humberstone
3. Recounting Encounter: Ocean Swimming, Multispecies Ecologies, and More-than-ocean-literacies
Rebecca Olive
4. Drawn Together by the Sea: Wild Swimming, Waves and Well-being
Charlotte Bates and Kate Moles
5. The Deep Blue: Learning from Wilderness Experiences in Ocean Sailing
Mark Orams
6. Water Symphonies: Teaching Silent Soundscapes and Tranquillity
Tuva B. Broch, Rose Keller and Evi Petersen
7. A Polluted Leisure Pedagogy in Seascape Wastelands
Clifton Evers
8. Children’s Active Living by the Sea: New Coastal Environments in Denmark
Søren Andkjær and Jan Arvidsen
9. Cultures of Managing Hazard and Play: Guarding Life in the Littoral Zone
Jon Anderson and Dan Sorley
Part II: Experiencing Blue Spaces in Educational Settings
10. Sail Training: Perspectives of Sea Going Staff
Eric Fletcher and Heather Prince
11. Setting Sail to Response-ability: Sail Training through and for the Sea
Alun Morgan and Mike Brown
12. We Sail for Stories: Fifty Years of the Blue Humanities at Sea Education Association (SEA)
Jeff Wescott, Richard King and Erin Bryant
13. All at Sea: Living the Tension of Mobility and Place
Chris Loynes
14. Visualising Seascapes: Encounters in Higher Education
Mark Leather and TA Loeffler
15. Students of the Sea: Tauira O Te Moana
Mark Jones, Charlotte Jelleyman and Mike Brown
16. Tēnā koe (that is you): Meeting the Ocean Dwelling Other.
David Irwin, Adam Brasell, Raquelle De Vine and Rachael Pelvin
Biography
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.
