Incorporating the Concept of Mindfulness in Informal Outdoor Education Settings

What do you do when your educational programs begin to lose some of their audience appeal? One tool to recapture your audience or simply to keep your existing ones engaged is introducing the mindfulness concept into your educational efforts. According to Langer (1989, 1997), mindfulness is expressed by actively processing information within one's surrounding context, and it is more likely when a setting or situation (a) is varied, interactive, and involving; (b) facilitates perceptions of control; (c) appears relevant to one's interests; and (d) is perceived as unique, new, or different. The primary purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of mindfulness and propose a model based on mindfulness principles for use in informal outdoor education settings. It is hoped that the model will provide an additional tool to help professionals achieve educational goals and objectives, and to facilitate increased learning, overall satisfaction, and responsible environmental behavior among participants.