Does Bushcraft have a place in Formal Education?

horizons professional development for outdoor praciioners THE ARTICLE ON THE FOLLOWING PAGES WAS PUBLISHED IN Published by the Insitute for Outdoor Learning art icl ea ut ho rc op y HORIZONS - the outdoor professional development magazine www.outdoor-learning.org Aricle by Geofrey Guy Does Bushcraft have a place in formal EDucation? p26 p26HORIZONS HORIZONSMagazine MagazineNo No61 63 p26 HORIZONS Magazine No 63 raft shc Justifying Bu As part of a Ceriicate in Educaion I have been studying I was required to complete a piece of research into something that would afect my teaching. I have seen the way that involvement in outdoor aciviies and paricularly bushcrat can be beneicial to young people over the years and I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to see if there was a place for bushcrat within the curriculum of vocaional countryside management courses. Before I could commence with my research I had to jusify the use of bushcrat as a tool in teaching. There are links with many of the skills involved in countryside management eg green woodwork, woodland management, archaeology, landscape history and game management. There is also plenty of literature to support the use of bushcrat as a tool in educaion. Most useful in my argument for bushcrat to be embedded in courses delivered at an agricultural college are the indings of several papers on the use of tradiional skills. These papers summarise that the tradiional knowledge, which we might refer to as bushcrat, of subsistence agriculturalists relies solely on the tradiional knowledge and skills of the farmers and that that knowledge is valuable and valid even when you consider the availability of modern farming methods. In preparing for this research I did ind some literature to support my case for bushcrat, although all this modern technology has provided more eicient tools and methods with which to carry out pracical countryside management tasks the tradiional ‘bushcrat’ skills are by no means obsolete. For example there are many parts of the world where people rely solely on their tradiional knowledge, their ‘bushcrat’1,2, to survive and researchers are coming to recognise that this tradiional knowledge is sill relevant today and may even provide signiicant insight into environmental issues. From an educaion perspecive; the construcivist theory says that knowledge is constructed as new informaion ‘joins up’ with exising informaion3. By providing new experiences to students through bushcrat it gives them another point of reference by which to remember the informaion they require. Addiionally those students who are strongly kinaestheic may well remember a plant species beter based on the occasion when they made string from bark rather than visual features of the plant. mEthoDs I couldn’t invesigate every area where bushcrat overlapped with the exising countryside management curriculum so I chose to base this research on the plant ideniicaion skills of two cohorts of students. Each of these cohorts were studying a level 3 countryside management qualiicaion, as this invesigaion aimed to look at the efeciveness of including bushcrat in the provision of the course there was a need Linking bushcrat to Greenwoodwork to ensure that both cohorts received the same and Woodland management, making amount of tutor guidance. The bushcrat tuiion char cloth and making charcoal follow the same principles that cohort B received could not be ‘extra’ support otherwise it would invalidate the study. On top of their normal tuiion cohort A studied a unit on arboriculture which a signiicant element of plant and tree ID, cohort B studied bushcrat instead of arboriculture and this meant that they each received the same amount of direct tutor guidance and supervision. p27 HORIZONS Magazine No 63 Both cohorts were taught in a pracical fashion, cohort A were by no means conined to a classroom and they were able to examine plants and trees in as close a detail as they wanted and were also given opportuniies to pracice their pracical ideniicaion skills. The diference in the approach to cohort B was that they would also be taught the uses of the plants and trees they ideniied and would get pracically involved in those uses. For example; Cohort A (no bushcrat tuiion) was taught that lime can be recognised by its roughly heart shaped leaves, smooth green/grey bark in immature trees and grey/brown slightly issured bark in mature specimens. They were also taught about the habitat each species would normally be found in. Cohort B (bushcrat tuiion) were taught to recognise the tree in the same way but also collected bark and took part in a project to make a meter of string strong enough to lit a toolbox. Other aciviies related to other plants included collecing wild food and discussions based on the medicinal properies of certain plants. Each cohort was then given an idenical pracical test to idenify sixteen diferent plant and tree species, based on a single sighing of each one in the wild rather than from a sample or picture. rEsults The results of the two tests would then be compared using a t-test, a staisical test to determine whether two sets of data are signiicantly diferent. In addiion the students in cohort B answered a quesionnaire so I could gauge their level of interest and engagement and ind out where they thought links might exist between countryside management and bushcrat. Students had been idenifying umbelifers like hogweed and cow parsely and ater some pracice they collected some hogweed seeds to make biscuits. Figure 1; a representaion of how relevant students felt bushcrat was to each of the topics they study on their countryside management course. p28 HORIZONS Magazine No 63 In general students responded excellently to the inclusion of bushcrat in their sessions. Most importantly in terms of my invesigaion the t-test I carried out conirmed that cohort B did score signiicantly higher in their plant ID test than cohort A, with an average score of 12.25 out of 16 compared to cohort A’s average score of 8.5 out of 16. This result conirmed my hypothesis that knowledge of bushcrat can improve the atainment of students in relaive ields of study, although a more detailed study, including addiional topic areas, would need to be undertaken to provide a conclusive result across the subject. Figure 1 shows which topics students felt were supported by bushcrat, it was not considered relevant to topics such as freshwater and wetland management but the students were in agreement that Greenwood crat and Woodland management were paricularly well supported by bushcrat aciviies and that certain elements of pest and predator control, estate skills, and ecology were also enhanced by paricipaion in bushcrat. Figure 2; results of student quesionnaire From these links it’s not hard to imagine where bushcrat might also inluence more mainstream educaion, how about links between bushcrat and geography with aciviies such as celesial navigaion and map reading, chemistry; with the chemical process of tanning and preserving skins as a case study, history; case studies of indigenous peoples and primiive technology, biology and environmental science; organism ideniicaion and ecology. The possible links are endless and bushcrat would be far more engaging than a lot of what I remember doing at school. The students certainly agreed that the aciviies they took part in were engaging as shown by Figure 2. In Figure 2 the numbers on the y axis correspond to the quesions posed on the quesionnaire (each quesion had the possible responses strongly agree, agree, disagree and strongly disagree); 1. Bushcrat is not part of the required curriculum of a countryside management course; but studying it equips you with skills you could use in a career in the countryside. 2. It is easy to engage and take part in bushcrat aciviies. 3. Bushcrat is a more engaging topic than other topics you study at college. 4. Knowing about the properies and uses of certain plants and trees has enhanced your ability to idenify them. 5. The basic skills of bushcrat, such as using a knife or saw, have helped you in your studies. As the graph shows there were no negaive responses to any of the quesions, this is very encouraging. Figure 2 conclusively shows that students considered bushcrat a valuable topic to study. conclusions The staisical analysis showed that students who received bushcrat tuiion signiicantly outperformed those who did not. This test can’t prove that bushcrat would similarly impact all areas of a countryside management course but it is encouraging to see that at least in this area there is signiicant correlaion. As to why bushcrat might afect atainment; during the test I gave to students I heard comments such as; “I remember eaing that, it tasted awful” and “that’s the one we used to make fricion ire kits” so it was clear that the addiional points of reference that students were construcing for themselves was helping them remember and recognise each plant and tree species. As this invesigaion also looked at how bushcrat efected student engagement it is also important to note that the excepional engagement indicated by igure 2 may have also contributed to the higher test scores of cohort B as it is understood that improved engagement can improve student “atenion to the learning task, mental efort, and perseverance in the face of diiculty” 4. About Geofrey Guy Geofrey Guy lectures at Moulton College specialising in deer management and countryside/outdoor recreaion. He set up a bushcrat special interest group while working in Northern Sweden and to pay his way through university he delivered bushcrat, survival skills, forest schools and ecology courses to groups throughout East Anglia. Further to this invesigaion it would be interesing He is interested in to tailor the method used in this research to suit an carrying out further research on the invesigaion of the impact of bushcrat on student value of bushcrat in atainment on other areas of their studies to see how educaion and would else bushcrat could be used in formal educaion. n be interested in hearing any comments on this aricle; he can be References contacted on geofrey. [email protected]. For anyone interested 1. Beckford, C. & Barker, D., 2007. The role and value of local knowledge in the full write-up of in Jamaican agriculture; adaptaion and change in small scale farming. The Geof’s research into Geographical Journal, 173(2), pp. 118-128. the Value of Bushcrat 2. Colorado, P. & Collins , D., 1987. Western scieniic colonialism and the in Formal Educaion re-emergence of naive Science.. Pracice: Journal of Poliics, Economics, it can be found online Psychology, Sociology and Culture , Volume Winter, pp. 50-65. at htp://moulton. 3. Glaserield, E., 1989. Construcivism in Educaion. Oxford : Pergamon Press . academia.edu/ 4; Pety, G., 1998. Teaching Today. Cheltenham: Stanley Thomas. GeofreyGuy. Photos: All from the author. p29 HORIZONS Magazine No 63 p29 HORIZONS Magazine No 63 horizons professional development for outdoor practitioners Coninue your Professional Development with Horizons Magazine. Aricles by, and for, outdoor professionals - published Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. Contributors share good pracice, experise or experiences of their work in the outdoors. Full IOL membership includes a free subscripion to Horizons. Published quarterly by the The Insitute for Outdoor Learning is the professional body for outdoor learning praciioners. 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