Year One 

Contemporary Issues in Outdoor and Adventure Education 

Contemporary, organised, and facilitated outdoor and adventure education in the U.K has a recent but rich history. This module aims to explore the key historical antecedents of contemporary experiential, outdoor and adventure education. This module also aims to examine the efficacy of contemporary outdoor and adventure education as well as exploring possible futures for this well- developed area of study in the U.K and beyond.  

Understanding Groups in the Outdoors

An introduction to the study of group formation and group dynamics. The module commences by considering the pressures placed on society in general by different groups. The study of group formation and processes is then placed in outdoor and adventure contexts where you will consider models of group formation and the dynamics of group processes. It will explore established and contemporary theories that aim to explain the different ways groups function. 

Developing Professional and Academic Skills

This module aims to help you make the transition between UK qualifications levels three and four (Year One at university) by advancing intellectual and academic skills, which will support you throughout your programme. As part of the developing professional skills part of this module you will focus on issues surrounding employability and developing graduate employability skills. 

Understanding Performance (Water-Based) 

Key aspects of the module will include an examination of personal performance, the physical environment, and safety and wellbeing. It will focus on creating theory to practice links and build a solid intellectual foundation for understanding water-based adventure activities which can be applied to wider environmental and sports contexts. 

Adventures in Education 1 (Introducing Pedagogy)

Whilst many students appreciate the organisational elements necessary for safe delivery of outdoor and adventure activities they often lack the necessary pedagogical understanding to maximise opportunity for learning in outdoor and adventure education contexts. This module introduces you to learning theories that have dominated formal and informal education contexts. This module also challenges ideas historically implicit in outdoor and adventure education. 

Introduction to Psychological Issues in Outdoor and Adventurous Activities

The aims of this module are for you to have a sound knowledge of the basic concepts within the academic discipline of psychology, its different perspectives, and its application to the outdoor and adventurous environment.  Developmental and lifespan issues will be addressed from a motor, cognitive, social, and moral perspective. Individual differences within the learning environment will be examined through personality, motivation, and the development of self-concept.  The module will also address the acquisition of skill, learning theories, skill versus ability, memory, and motor control.   

Fundamentals of Human Physiology 

This module will cover the fundamental principles of Human Physiology by examining how key systems such as the musculoskeletal system, the cardiovascular system, and the respiratory system affect human performance. Specific attention is paid to energy metabolism in the context of the exercising human across the breadth of the energy spectrum.

Understanding Performance (Land-Based) 

Key aspects of the module will include an examination of personal performance, the physical environment, and safety and wellbeing.  The module will focus on creating theory to practice links and will build a solid intellectual foundation for understanding land-based adventure activities which can be applied to wider environmental and sports contexts.  

Year Two

Core modules:

Adventures in Education 2 (Developing Pedagogy) 

The aim of this module is to provide you with a basis to continue to develop pedagogical principles established in Adventures in Education 1 (Introducing Pedagogy). This module builds on the key principles developed in year one and is a response to student feedback to include opportunities for feedback on students’ teaching and facilitation skills. This module centres on the planning, delivery, evaluation, and justification of teaching and/or facilitation methods applied to small group, micro-teaching contexts in outdoor and adventure education.

Outdoor Environments 1

Most people involved in outdoor and adventure activities are thrown into closer contact with the natural environment than they have ever been before. Those who understand these environments are more likely to reach their goals, to do so safely, and to do so with considerable personal satisfaction. This module aims to introduce physical and biological processes that have shaped environments in the past and continue to affect them in the present, to enable you to appreciate the broad environmental context of outdoor and adventure activities for your own personal benefit and to provide awareness and excitement you will share with other participants. 

Management Issues in  Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning

A focus on providing activities for groups operating in adventurous environments.  The module examines the legislation and logistics that govern the management of adventure providers, facilitative centres, and environment agencies.  Through your studies you will generate an understanding of the operational environment that you will find yourself working and participating in. 

Research and Enquiry in Outdoor and Adventure Education 

This module aims to raise and explore research methods and issues within Adventure Education. This module sets out to provide an appropriate and sound basis for future research. It aims to introduce you to the notion of research paradigms, consider a range of traditions, and provide a solid foundation of research design. The intention is to develop your critical awareness of a variety of qualitative and quantitative research methods and data analysis techniques. You will also consider data analysis techniques that will be immediately transferable to other areas of the degree. 

Applied Meteorology 

Many students can organise outdoor and adventure activities in simple contexts but few have the ability to do so in light of complex environmental factors. This module aims to provide you with a basic knowledge of the earth’s atmosphere, the principles underlying its behaviour, and the effects of weather on adventure environments. There is also the opportunity to develop your pedagogical decision-making process in outdoor and adventure environments.

Outdoor Environments 2 (Asking and Answering Environmental Questions)

A week of fieldwork in a location contrasting sharply within West Sussex will provide you with experience of unfamiliar environments and provide an opportunity for you to develop problem-solving skills through short, intensive practical investigations of the unfamiliar. The culmination of the fieldwork will be a short independent research project, which you will devise and undertake in the field. Subsequently, you will work in small teams to propose and plan a more significant overseas research project. The experience will prepare you for your Dissertation in your final year. 

Optional modules:

Applied Techniques for Performance Enhancement in the Adventure Environment 

The aims of this module are for you to explore the role of applied sports science in the enhancement of performance as well as in quality delivery within the Adventure Environment. It aims to examine the use of analysis and assessment tools, to provide an introduction to mental skills training and development within participation and performance environments, and consider the implications for coaches and leaders to enhance performance and experience within the outdoors. The module also aims to consider ethical aspects of applied work and raise your awareness to opportunities available within a broader perspective of future work. 

Forest Schools – Principles and Practice

A Forest School is a journey of self-discovery and awareness in the outdoors in which participants are given the freedom to explore their surroundings, themselves, and others through their curiosity and imagination. The approach is heralded by some as inspirational but described by others as re-branding of old ideas giving questionable impact. This module explores principles that underpin the Forest School approach and reflects on evidence for its effectiveness. To enable them to engage fully in these reflections, you will learn and use practical skills expected of a Forest School Practitioner. 

The Outdoor Experience – Emotions and Wellbeing 

The aim of the module is for you to explore the experience of being in the outdoors from an emotional and well-being perspective. The restorative and therapeutic benefits of immersive experience will be examined and these will include creative activities, understanding of place, and connectedness to the environment and others. 

Diving 

Explore the complex interaction between the hyperbaric aquatic environment, and the physiological coping mechanisms of the human. Environmental issues will be discussed, as will medical emergencies and progression opportunities in diving. This module will also provide you with the opportunity to gain the SSI Open Water Dive award.

Year Three

Adventure Education Experience 

The placement experience will enable you to observe and be involved in work in areas of outdoors, adventure, and/or education. This will provide the opportunity to consider the varying approaches adopted by different providers. It will provide you with the opportunity to reflect upon that provision and/or provide access to further improvement in personal performance. The placement can be anywhere in the world that you choose. Previous students have worked in Norway, Sri Lanka and China.

Year Four

Core modules:

Dissertation 

This module aims to be the major element of your independent research enquiry. It assumes that practitioners of any form need to reflect on the context and application of their specialised interest generated by the earlier selection of specialised subject study modules. It is designed to extend your intellectual capacity by encouraging you to find and explore your own `problem' assisted by supervision from a tutor. Translating research reports into a coherent plausible account calls for creative and technical skills of a high professional order. This module is based on the conviction that outdoor and adventure facilitators need to be highly effective in communicating with a range of professional agencies and be able to integrate and apply research to their professional practice as appropriate.

Research Methods for Outdoor and Adventure Education 

This module aims to provide an intellectual and practical opportunity to develop an awareness of research methods and scientific principles pertinent to the adventure and outdoor sector. It aims to develop dialogue, research skills, reflective practice, and critical thinking about problems and gaps in knowledge within adventure and the outdoors.  The module will help you develop as an independent researcher capable of planning and executing a small-scale research project in an appropriate academic or professional setting. It is intended to be interdisciplinary in nature and to be applicable to a wide range of research paradigms from laboratory-based experimental work to phenomenologically based research. 

Sport and Exercise in Extreme Environments 

Optional modules:

Adventures in Coaching 

Explore current issues within the coaching process considering their application within specific adventure sport activities. Humanistic and Long-Term Athlete Development principles are considered. Observation and analysis of performance will be examined along with practical scientific assessment tools to identify performer needs. Developmental activities will be explored including the application of sports science in the development of training programmes within specific adventure contexts.

Adventures in Education 3 (Advanced Pedagogical Skills) 

You have now completed a work placement during which you have been required to adopt organisational and pedagogical strategies as directed by organisations that fellow teachers, coaches, and facilitators would employ in delivering outdoor and adventure education. This module asks you to go further by challenging this conventional wisdom and critically appraising the basis for your teaching approach. The long-term aim is for you to have a critical edge over competitors in your ability to reflect on your teaching, coaching, and facilitation practices throughout your professional careers. 

Environments 3 (Interpreting the Environment to Others) 

Outdoor professionals and others as diverse as teachers, journalists, councillors, and politicians need to be able to help the public understand the environment which surrounds them. Not only do they require their own solid grounding in aspects of ecology and natural history, physical geography, environmental history, human ecology, sustainability, and balanced development, but they need to be able to get others interested and excited too. This module builds on Outdoor Environments 1 and 2 by drawing together aspects of environmental science and environmental education in the broadest sense so that you are comfortable with both in a professional context. An aim is to use outdoor and adventure environments as contexts in which you deliver effective environmental education to a variety of client groups. 

Wilderness

Wilderness, defined by Conservation International as areas with fewer than 1 inhabitant km-2, covers the least hospitable 40% of the earth's land area. The challenging conditions and the absence of people give it a particular appeal to those pursuing outdoor and adventure activities. While adventurers, ecotourists, and other visitors can themselves detract from the nature of the wilderness and should perhaps be managed, the world's wildernesses face all manner of other threats to their continued existence. These threats are as diverse as the exploitation of natural resources to global climate change. This module will approach the broad theme of wilderness from a number of perspectives and will challenge you to draw these together to construct your own transdisciplinary understanding. 

Free Choice Elective

An opportunity to choose a module from across the Institute of Sport.