Retrospective Perceptions of Counselor Work at an Environmental Education Camp: Experiences and Outcomes
Open Access
- Author:
- Mateer, Timothy
- Graduate Program:
- Recreation, Park and Tourism Management
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- February 21, 2020
- Committee Members:
- Brendan Derrick Taff, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Carter A Hunt, Committee Member
Pete Allison, Committee Member
Peter Newman, Program Head/Chair - Keywords:
- environmental education
emerging adulthood
camp counselors
identity development
eudaimonia
hedonia - Abstract:
- Environmental education camps serve as a space to integrate the pro-environmental messages typical of an environmental education setting with the social and emotional growth of the general camp setting. There exists initial evidence from the general camp environment that counselors are developing alongside campers through their work in these programs, especially as counselors generally exist in the period of identity exploration known as emerging adulthood. To explore this further, a quota sampling process was used to recruit and conduct interviews of 26 former counselors from Shaver’s Creek Environmental Center’s Outdoor School (SCEC ODS), informants being both within emerging adulthood and past emerging adulthood. Interviews focused on impactful elements of the counselor experience, the meaning the experience holds in the current lives of informants, and how the associated meanings differ between individuals’ developmental states. Past counselors communicated strong eudaimonic and hedonic feelings stemming from four primary components of the SCEC ODS experience: leadership and education, community, outdoor elements, and cultural traditions. The complimentary nature of these feelings promoted post-program identity development within counselors, with individuals identifying strongly with the environmental and social skills developed through the experience. Finally, emerging adults identified a level of compartmentalization of these identities, seeing them as only part of their fragmented self-perception. In contrast, those removed from emerging adulthood utilized a sense of identity flexibility to incorporate their SCEC ODS-related identities into a more cohesive sense of self. This suggests identity development within counselors at an environmental education camp may be an effective way to promote long-term pro-environmental and social-emotional outcomes within emerging adults. Implications for future research and environmental education camps are discussed from these findings.