Camping promotes better understanding of others different, teamwork, and autonomy

This study covered four semesters, from the second semester of 2004 to semester one of 2006. An overall number of 126 pre-service physical education students of the University of the South Pacific agreed to answer a questionnaire after each semester’s camping trip, asking them about what they had learned as a result of participating in the outdoors, camping experiences. Overwhelmingly, answers have consistently revealed three outcomes: firstly, getting to know and understand others of different cultures, ethnicity, language, religion, and race. Secondly, the teamwork and cooperation within the group. The third relates to learning to being able to fend for themselves. The activities they participated in such as games, hiking, the traditional activity of bilibili (bamboo rafting), and others, were all secondary to their reflection of what they had learned. The teamwork, an avenue for the better understanding and tolerance of others different, and independent selfhood and autonomy, were instead the major outcomes of their camping experience. Considering that the questionnaire was open-ended, thus no direction for choices, the findings of this study are revealing, defining the importance of outdoor education in the development of the affective domain of learning