Teaching for wilderness

Experiential educators are a large, important and growing wilderness user group. The time has come for them to teach for the mountains as well as through them. They must teach responsibility for nature and wildland values. They must help their clients learn the special lessons about nature and human nature which may b revealed in wild places, lessons which may help them back home to do their part to assure sustainability of nature and civilization. Education in wilderness can help build even greater appreciation of the values preserved in wild nature such as biological diversity, ecological stability and the wonder and excitement that come with encounters with "vast and titanic" nature. Such education can provide perspective on how humans can and should relate to the underlying nature which nurtures them. Students can learn the meaning of conservation, stewardship and sustainability.

Educators who use wild places for teaching can do much to assure that such places remain wild and beautiful, healthy natural systems which support plants and animals threatened nearly everywhere else by human activity.

Wilderness should be used for education only when the lessons to be taught can best be learned there. Use of a wild place inevitably creates an impact upon that place. The impact, even when the user consciously tries to minimize it, is a small increment in the long-term change and degradation of wild places.