Helena Meyer-Knapp

One of the striking features of this research was to discover how often group trips for junior high and high school age students were oriented towards experiencing the outdoors. Once again the trips took a distinctive approach in each country.

In Korea, high schoolers went to Jeju Island more than to any other site. The island’s natural beauty is famous, and the school trips to the island frequently visit a large wind energy farm. Koreans also went on mountaineering and climbing field trips, about which a number of students commented that they were also engaged in physical training and discipline training. (Jeju was the destination of the ferry which capsized and sank in 2014, leaving over 300 of its school age passengers to die, while the crew escaped.)

Japanese students also saw contrasting forms of outdoor experience, and for most of them this represented a chance to have fun. Students may have been visiting Okinawa to see truly horrifying war memorials, but they also spent time on lovely tropical beaches and in the countryside. At the other end of the country many high schoolers were taken to Hokkaido and Nagano for 2-3 days to learn to ski. Japanese students were particularly likely to comment that the environmental experiences gave them a new and more positive view of their homeland.

American students reported outdoor experiences at all levels. Often the younger students went on formal environmental education tours, while some of the older students reported serving as camp counselors for the younger students.

Students from all three countries linked comments about  encounters with the natural beauty of their own country with increased their sense of gratitude and pleasure in their nationality.

Japan: In Okinawa the nature is very different from our local area. For example the sounds of the insects and local tropical plants and so on.

I recognized the Japanese beauty of nature which I cannot see in city life.

We went to see the calcerous caves. I felt the greatness of nature.

Korea: I learned how to climb especially when it rains.

Differences from other areas.  Beautiful scenery.

USA: The importance of nature and my place in it.

Grand canyon– I learned that I had missed a lot by never going anywhere that there’s a whole world out there I never knew about.