Learning Areas > Outdoor Education
About the Learning Area
Outdoor Education at Carey is a sequential program from Year 4 through to Year 11. Students visit unique environments across Victoria and parts of Australia, each program providing a progressive learning opportunity through living in a variety of natural environments and participating in a breadth of adventure activities.
All students are encouraged to strive to be wise, independent, motivated learners through their engagement in these varied environments, with explicit teaching in the nine Carey Positive Learner Attributes central to the teaching and learning in all Outdoor Education programs. Students are encouraged to engage in ways to build more effective Relationships, to explore pathways towards more expanded Thinking and an awareness of Self-management that will enhance their opportunity for personal growth.
The Outdoor Education program aims to build strong partnerships between students, the communities visited and the local environment. This is presented in 3 key areas:
- Past: What is layered history of the region
- Present: What are the current environmental and cultural influences
- Future: How can we make positive change through informed action?
These partnerships with the communities visited will be founded on an expectation to:
- Engender respect, trust & collaboration.
- Empathise through exploring aspects relevant to the areas we visit.
- Engage community service.
Rather than being a tourist, the student is challenged to find ways they can have a positive impact on the environment. This will enable students to develop an understanding of actions that contribute to sustainable patterns of living, with an aim to meet the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations. This is achieved through a focus on protecting environments and creating a more ecologically, socially, culturally and economically just world through informed actions as an individual in harmony with the community.
Spending time in the outdoors across each year level allows students to gain an appreciation of the natural world and their place within it, giving them an understanding of the layered histories and cultures of the areas through which they travel. Discussions and learning activities allow students to think critically about how these concepts inform their own world views and cultural belief systems.
Students learn about the local First Nations People and the historic and contemporary impacts of colonisation on these communities. Extended time immersed in the one environment encourages students to explore and engage with the unique belief systems that connect people physically and spiritually to Country and place to gain a deeper understanding of local communities and First Nations People ways of being, knowing, thinking and doing.
Ultimately by instilling these values through meaningful and lived experiences, Outdoor Education creates an ideal learning environment that fosters enjoyment and allows students to contribute toward a sustainable future through positive relationships with the natural world.
