MA in Outdoor and Experiential Learning (Pathways)
Ambleside, United Kingdom
DURATION
1 Years
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
Request application deadline
EARLIEST START DATE
Sep 2025
TUITION FEES
GBP 13,575 / per year *
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
* international | UK: GBP 6,720 per year
Introduction
If you love the outdoors and are passionate about helping others to be confident in who they are and the contribution they are making to society, the environment and the planet, then this outdoor experiential learning masters program is for you.
Our outdoor experiential learning masters will challenge your current understanding and practice by looking through the alternative lens of outdoor experiential learning.
Based at our Ambleside campus in the heart of the Lake District National Park, you will live and study surrounded by mountains, woods, rivers and lakes – an unrivalled location for outdoor education.
This course uses the fundamental process of actual lived experience to explore the cultural, ecological and political lenses which influence our thoughts and behaviour. In contrast to more formal approaches to learning, this course exemplifies experiential learning in its delivery, as well as in the content of its curriculum.
To reflect this contemporary trend, there are 3 pathways to choose from which reflect current applications of experiential learning.
- Outdoor & Experiential Learning
- Outdoor & Experiential Learning (Bushcraft)
- Outdoor & Experiential Learning (Health & Wellbeing)
You will consider the histories, contemporary application and growth of outdoor and experiential learning at the intersections of professional practice, pedagogy and philosophy via debate & discussion, creative reflection, critical analysis and critique of research and evidence.
From your base in Ambleside, you can take advantage of more than 150 lofty peaks, 16 lakes and an abundance of rivers across the Lake District – quite literally a classroom on your doorstep.
Gallery
Admissions
Scholarships and Funding
The exact amount of funding support you'll receive will be calculated by your regional funding body on application.
Curriculum
There are three pathways to choose from in order to complete the MA qualification.
The Outdoor & Experiential Learning pathway engages with current debates around environmental empathy, displacement, social equality, adventurous journeying, embodiment, outdoor recreation, nature-culture philosophies, colonialism, globalization and management of people in organisations, sustainability and alternative forms of education, for example.
The Bushcraft pathway deeply engages the learner with both practical and theoretical concerns within the emerging academic field of Bushcraft. This field speaks to wider implications for educational, therapeutic, commercial and recreational ideas.
The Health and Wellbeing pathway offers a reflective exploration of the student’s own therapeutic relationship with ‘the outdoors’ as well as personal and planetary wellbeing and ill-health. Utilising experimental walks and residential settings, alternative narratives of human-environment relations will be developed whilst exploring historical, traditional and contemporary perspectives of nature-based psychotherapies and therapeutic landscapes.
Compulsory Modules
Introduction to Outdoor and Experiential Learning
Explore the processes and definitions of Outdoor and Experiential Learning.
The Reflexive Practitioner
Examine the concept of ‘world views’ and explore their impact on professional practice.
Independent Inquiry
The aim of the module is to support students in planning, conducting and writing up an applied research or evaluation project within the field.
Dissertation
Design and conduct a substantial piece of independent supervised research.
Pathway Modules
Bushcraft Pathway
Histories and Principles of Bushcraft
Explore the history and growth of bushcraft as a practice and an ideology.
Cultures and Practices of Bushcraft
Taking as its starting point the concerns articulated by contemporary Indigenous scholarship, about the appropriation of traditional cultures by both Westernised global commerce and academy, we explore the problems and the potentials of Bushcraft as a transformative concept in the modern world.
Outdoor & Experiential Learning Pathway
Know Your Place: Place Responsive Approaches to the Outdoors
The module explores different ways in which we and others create space and how that can help us consider how these different “lenses” shape our place.
Learning from Adventurous Journeys
Adopting a field-based journey approach the module will enable students to reflect critically on their work with adventurous journeys and develop new, innovative and challenging experiences with enhanced knowledge of the theory underpinning professional practice.
Health & Wellbeing Pathway
Querying Therapeutic Landscapes & Outdoor Psychotherapies
Introduces and critiques the theoretical underpinnings of outdoor psychotherapies and therapeutic landscapes research and applications. Utilising experimental walks, alternative narratives of human-environment relations will be developed to explore the concept of ‘assemblages of health’.
Therapeutic Opportunities in the Outdoors
Reflectively explore individual therapeutic relationships with the outdoors. This module typically contains a residential aspect.
How You Will Be Assessed
Assessment is an integral part of the course and takes place during and at the end of modules. In most modules, there is a blend of formative and summative assessment tasks that students complete which reflect the breadth of skills and competencies required by graduates. Students are expected to show critical analysis, evaluation, creativity and autonomy in assessment.
Program Outcome
On This Course You Will
- Be part of a Lake District campus that prioritises hands-on and skills-based learning
- Be part of an innovative and creative course that is tailored to the individual for professional development and enhanced employability
- Have the opportunity to be creative and critical in challenging accepted ideas about both the contexts of experiential learning and about yourself
- Be part of a transdisciplinary course including teaching anthropology, philosophy, Bushcraft, therapeutic landscapes, art, pedagogy, eco-psychology, outdoor and environmental education, experiential learning, environmental humanities, and more
- Explore options for your personal and professional lives derived from many disciplines and cultures based on a reconsideration of the very processes of sensation, perception and cognition
- Be taught by an internationally renowned, highly qualified, experienced, empathetic, and diverse staff team with a breadth of expertise in pathway areas and in creative and imaginative teaching and learning