CPD with a difference: spending a weekend immersed in the outdoors: ‘doing fieldwork’, exploring, enquiring, collaborating, reflecting, learning – oh and having lots of fun! We had no set outcomes other than to share, enjoy and provide a space in which creativity might flourish. Find out what we did and how we reflected and learnt.

1. Environmental Immersion, Slow Pedagogy and Serendipitous Learning Paula Owens & Steve Rawlinson Some implications for creativity and CPD

2. Background: A two night stay at Borth YHA for Geography Champions Aims: To spend time out of doors To revitalise our senses To share ideas To learn from each other To enjoy ourselves

4. This is what we did. We ... chatted in cafes ate cake in car parks had picnics on sand dunes Laughed, played & asked questions Being in nature has many psychological benefits & brings out the best in people (Kaplan & Kaplan 2011)

5. explored natural objects, colours and shapes in the environment and made up stories about sculptures we created .

6. We looked at lakes and waterfalls and wrote poetry. We explored, observed, listened, touched, smelled & reflected. Environmental vocabulary is best learnt through first hand experience (Ward 1998)

7. We learnt new skills like how to ‘geocache’. We hid things and ourselves in the environment. We laughed, asked questions and played.

8. We discovered things at large and small scales Cinnabar caterpillars Froglets Patterns made from tiny pieces of material Red Kites Children are usually more likely to see the minutiae of everyday life – the tiny, inconsequential things that adults often miss (Owens 2008).

9. We played games with maps, looked at children’s work & listened to music from other cultures. We learnt, shared & reflected.

10. We investigated human & physical features in the landscape We absorbed new sights and wonders Unstructured experiences in natural environments give opportunities for decision making and promote creative and imaginative play; they also encourage greater social interactions which aid learning (Pretty et al 2009).

11. We used technical gadgetry to record in different ways A slow pedagogy, or ecopedagogy, allows us to pause or dwell in spaces for more than a fleeting moment and, therefore, encourages us to attach and receive meaning from that place . Payne and Wattchow (2009) p.16

12. Serendipitous learning has no goals in the sense objective driven learning has (King et al 2001); it is often personal and experiential and describes what we discover by chance that we didn’t set out to.

15. This ‘story’ can rightly be accused of being self- indulgent. It is. It’s all about US . WE matter. TEACHERS and EDUCATORS - in fact ADULTS matter. If we don’t take time to focus on us from time to time then we are not refreshing our curiosity about the world, our connections with environments, our intellectual , emotional & social capital , our sense of wonder and exploration , our ‘ joie de vivre ’, our capacity for laughter , adventure and play , our sense of renewal with the land .... and we cannot do the best for children. We need to stay emotionally and intellectually healthy so that we can teach from the mind & the heart - with renewed passion and creativity.

16. Learning is not always found at the end of the path But in the unplanned distractions along the way

17. Some of the underpinning thinking and theory

44. Thanks to Graeme Eyre, Sharon Witt, Lindsay West, Sarah Wilks, Arthur Kelly.