The Outdoors Are for Everyone
COH’s Justice and Nature Group Promoting More Inclusive Nature-Based Experiences
By Sarah Shebek
There's social justice, environmental justice, racial justice—and the College of Heath is bringing these ideas together to consider justice in nature.
Justice in nature challenges the idea of who gets involved in the outdoors and who defines meaningful nature-based experiences. In the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism, Jeff Rose, PhD, helps run a group focused on answering these questions through research.
“Access to the outdoors can be recreational but doesn’t have to be,” he said. “We don’t want to focus too narrowly on fitness and exercise, we want to focus on everyday experiences with the idea being, at its core, these are healthy activities and lifestyles. You don’t have to go skiing at Alta to engage in healthy behavior, you can do stuff in your neighborhood park.”
In PRT, many faculty and graduate students focus on projects that promote justice across all sectors. That includes homelessness, public parks and recreation, and visitor use management. But sometimes they existed in siloes, when they could build on existing strengths.
“We wanted to get those projects in conversation with each other to make our work even stronger,” Rose said. “We started meeting weekly to start building some common language and debate research topics. Over time that will trickle down into ideas for proposals and grants, or publications.”
Last fall Rose and colleagues started the Justice and Nature Research Group meetings on Tuesdays, which include faculty and doctoral and master’s students from PRT. It’s expanded to include students and faculty from other departments, like Environmental Humanities and Health and Kinesiology.
“I think we need more of that, bringing in folks from other disciplines,” Rose said. “We’re also getting a lot of interest from other universities who want to be involved. To my knowledge, this kind of working group doesn’t really exist outside of the University of Utah.”
Carly Knudson’s work exemplifies the benefits of the group. A master’s student in PRT, she plans to conduct surveys and interviews with first-year students on their interests in nature exposure, and what barriers may get in the way. The group helped Knudson obtain funding for the project, which could turn into a publishable manuscript.
“It’s Carly’s project and she’s very bright, but a lot of us are contributing to it,” Rose said. “It’s going to really enhance her thesis and make it very academically productive.”
Although the group is relatively new, they’re not wasting any time on moving their ideas into the national spotlight. Beyond Knudson’s work, they have two grant proposals underway, as well as a scholarly position paper. Rose is collaborating on the latter with fellow faculty Lisa Meerts-Brandsma, PhD and Kangjae “Jerry” Lee, PhD.
“Nature-based experiences have historically been exclusive. I think what we’re doing is expanding access, since most people report that time spent outdoors is beneficial for all aspects of health.”
