Outdoor education has traditionally bridged the spheres of environment, people and required them to work cooperatively and reflect on their actions within different environments and situations, often there are various challenges embedded (climatic / interpersonal / situational / etc.) within these experiences. These challenges were found to foster empathy, a spirit of camaraderie, a respect and understanding of the natural environment and a resilience to engage with the adventure of uncertainty and diverse challenge, in addition to facilitating an understanding of value systems and a spirit of engagement and engaged citizens.

In accordance with the National Strategy on Education for Sustainable Development (Department of Education and Skills, 2018) Education for Sustainability aims to ensure that education contributes to sustainable development by equipping learners with the relevant knowledge (the 'what'), the key dispositions and skills (the 'how') and the values (the 'why') that will motivate and empower them throughout their lives to become informed active citizens who take action for a more sustainable future. Education for Sustainability is a multidisciplinary approach to creating transformative learning experiences that contribute to the creation of a socially-just and sustainable and equitable society. Delivering Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) within the context of outdoor education builds on the cross-disciplinary approaches inherent to outdoor education and facilitates the reflection of differing values and processes, in addition to fostering resilience all of which are key components of outdoor education experiences.

The aim of this module is to provide students with the knowledge, skills and mindsets to prepare for the complex social, economic and environmental challenges. The module aims to develop a number of key competencies for sustainability; systems thinking, critical thinking, self-awareness, anticipatory competency, integrated problem-solving, collaboration competency and strategic competency. It aims to further develop other outdoor interdisciplinary skills; critical-ethical analytical skills; cross-cultural skills; influencing skills and skills in developing behavioural insights, empathy and communication. The module seeks to create a critical awareness of the challenges and empower students in active citizenship and to create positive change for a more sustainable future. An action-learning based approach will be used to develop a professional outdoor education context.

This module will seek to explore education for sustainability pedagogies and initiatives to create a dynamic community of outdoor educators for sustainability, who are committed to integrating and embedding cross-disciplinary approaches to sustainability across all areas of outdoor education. The experiential, interdisciplinary approach integral to outdoor education will use challenge-based and research informed learning to focus and investigate real-world issues within a holistic educational framework, informed by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

1. Demonstrate a critical awareness of the global sustainable development challenges;

2. To think holistically about sustainability in an outdoor education context and analyse interactions and impacts of its practices fromdifferent perspectives;

3. Critically analyse norms, practices and opinionsin fostering sustainable behaviour within outdoor education;

4. Design a stakeholder engagement and work collaboratively toaddresssustainability-related challenges;

5. Engage in ongoing critical self-reflection on their values, perceptions and actions in relation to active citizenship and stewardship.

6. Develop and implement asustainability education programme in an organisation that utilises the outdoors or outdoor practice.

This module aims to develop a critical understanding of the potential to enhance well-being through engagement with the natural environment. It will do so by introducing relevant theoretical perspectives in Outdoor Education, exploring opportunities to enhance wellbeing through nature and demonstrating their application in relevant areas of interest. Explorations of engagement will be through the critical lenses of adventure, activity and residential experiences.

1. Articulate an in-depth understanding of the theories that underpin well-being.

2. Demonstrate an in-depth understanding of models of well-being in the context of outdoor education and outdoor practice.

3. Critically examine the ethical considerations of practical well-being applications.

4. Design, facilitate and evaluate an outdoor education application for well-being in a safe and appropriate way to enhance well-being in a chosen setting.

5. Critically reflect on the role and contribution of outdoor education to well-being applications in an appropriate setting.

Students undertaking this module will develop the necessary understanding and skills to create, facilitate and promote experiential, placed based education programmes in their own place, institution or community. This module explores how outdoor and experiential education relates to 'place'. Place-Based Learning is rooted in what is local–the unique history, environment, culture, economy, literature, and art of a place. This interdisciplinary approach to learning uses examples from the social, natural and built environment of Mayo to explore how connections to place and nature develop and to further explore how these experiences could be mirrored in the learner's home place and working context. An experiential approach to learning underlies the approach in this module with learner and lecturer working to co-create the learning opportunities and to reflect on the experiences. These experiential learning opportunities will be developed through an exploration of the relational interplay within and between our human and more-than-human worlds. The development of how such a co-implicated understanding can shape our social, cultural and ecological behaviours will be examined along with its implications for social justice and sustainability.

1. Critically interpret how conceptions of place are created and consider how these different lenses shape our perception of place and landscape.

2. Evince an understanding of how learning experiences are created in the transaction between the learner, their place and their cultural context.

3. Articulate a broad understanding of the experiential learningwith a particular focus on connection to nature and pedagogy of place.

4. Critically evaluate and justify the ethical implication of practice and personal judgement in the context of place based experiential learning journeys/excursions.

5. Critically examine the consequence of their practice for the environments in which they work and articulate an understanding of sustainability within this context.

6. Apply our understanding of place to create innovative learning environments that interpret place for participants and others.

This module will assist learners in developing critical awareness of the range of research and innovation methods used in the sphere of outdoor education and how to appropriately select from these in designing a project proposal. It will provide students with the knowledge necessary to design a realistic, practically based and robustly-designed project that seeks to improve practice. Learners will be required to consider their proposed project area, articulate aims and objectives and submit a project proposal. Learners who successfully complete this module will be competent at selecting and applying appropriate methods and techniques to conduct a substantial project.

1. Develop,articulate and justify a research/project aim.

2. Articulate coherent research projectobjectives which are appropriately related to the aim of the project.

3. Select research methods which areappropriate to the research aims and objectives.

4. Set out and defend the rational for selecting a particular methodological approach suitable to the research question.

5. Articulate critical insight into ethical and data protection issues and appropriately address these.

6. Formulate a research proposal for a dissertation.