For all to flourish, the health of children and the health of the Earth must be in equilibrium (Louv, 2011). Unfortunately, climate change, exasperated by the effects of the Anthropocene, is placing planetary health and this equilibrium on a precarious cusp, with many of our youth suffering from climate grief and anxiety. Outdoor Environmental Education (OEE) and Adventure Education (AE) experiences have a pivotal role to play, as they provide the ideal context to equip students with knowledge and skills to be the vital change agents the world needs. In addition, OEE and AE educators have a moral imperative to plan experiences, and educate students and activity providers about climate change, and motivate them to act. OEE and AE can enact a climate-responsive curriculum that prepares participants for the impacts of climate change through practical and experiential learning opportunities that other disciplines may not offer. Wayman (2018) encapsulates these thoughts, explaining that “outdoor and adventure education offers a unique chance to correlate issues such as … climate change and sustainability… into everyday life and connect them to similar ideas, to the lived experiences of participants” (p. 176).
This presentation will highlight the findings of a systematic literature review (Fox and Thomas, under review) that examined the prevalence of climate change as a focus of published research within the Journal of Outdoor and Environmental Education (JOEE). The objective of the literature review was to ascertain the extent to which climate change was being discussed, researched and highlighted in the JOEE and to identify themes, gaps, and future research opportunities regarding the inclusion of climate change foci in OEE. A total of 251 articles were analysed from 1998 to 2021, categorised and coded in the following areas: Author affiliation, the type of article, the context of each article, and the article's focus (primary and secondary). The findings revealed that only one peer-reviewed paper had a secondary focus regarding climate change, with another 13 papers referring to climate change.