Experience of Nature
characteristic landscape forms and types of outdoor activities through their own active participation and
subject development.
Students participate in outdoor activities such as excursions and field trips and become acquainted with characteristic landscape forms and types of outdoor activities through their own active participation and subject development. Friluftsliv is a Norwegian way of doing outdoor-activities deeply rooted in Norwegian identity.
Every student reflects on those adventure experiences from his/her own academic starting point, and writes an essay seeing his/her experience in relation to the knowledge the student has developed through previous experience. For example a student of nursing can connect experience to a public health improvement perspective, a student of tourism to ecological or geo-tourism, and a teacher training student to outdoor- based teaching.
Higher Education Entrance Qualification and English language proficiency.
Can be taken as an individual course.
Places on the course are limited.
Students who apply for admission to the study programme are given priority over students who wish to take it as an individual course. If the number of international applicants exceeds the number of places available, students from institutions holding a student exchange agreement with Nord University will be given priority.
Knowledge:
On successful completion of the course the students will:
- Be able to recognise the most common local rocks
- Be able to recognise and describe the formation history of characteristic small- and great-scaled landforms
- Be able to identify and collect geo-data from glacial activity
- Have knowledge about the concept of outdoor life.
Skills:
Students should after successful completion of course be able to:
- Arrange experience-based learning-activities outdoors
- Reflect on how experience-based learning outdoors can be utilized in own profession
- Be able to interpret the formation history of a glacially formed landscape
- To arrange learning-activities in a glacially formed landscape
- Reflect upon what is a meaningful experience and how to create such
General competence:
Through successful completion of the modules the students should have competence in or about:
- Learning through participating in hands-on activities
- Developing active outdoor activities
No tuition fees. Costs for semester registration and course literature apply.
On the field trip to Engabreen students stay over for two nights and must calculate c. 600 NOK in total for accommodation (300 NOK per night). Meals are not included as these costs are based on students doing their own catering. All other travel expenses are covered by the university.
The course focuses on active learning methods. Learning through field work and participation in out door activities are central teaching methods. These activities are followed up by lectures to refine these experiences.
Reflections on activities are enhanced by writing short field-notes from the various field trips, and these provide the basis for the exam, an essay.
The students participate in different tours such as:
- A come-together tour: Sea-rafting in the Saltenfiord and Saltstraumen-maelstrom
- A day-trip mapping the retreat of the glacier that once covered Scandinavia
- A 3-days field trip from Bodø to Engabreen, an outlet glacier of Svartisen, which includes a walk on a glacier and into caves
- A day canoeing on a lake
- Half days field trips in the coastal landscape surrounding Bodø