Outdoor Recreation and its Effect on our Relationship with The Environment

Authors

Martin Brannaman

Date of this Version

12-12-2022

Citation

Environmental Studies Undergraduate Student Thesis, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2022.

Comments

Copyright 2022, Martin Brannaman

Abstract

This study was conducted at the University of Nebraska Outdoor Adventure Center. This study employed a pre-post retrospective assessment looking at individuals' connection with nature after embarking on a direct outdoor experience. A direct outdoor experience is when an individual is outside and not surrounded by manmade structures (Kil, 2016). I believe that after a direct outdoor experience the sample group will have a significant change in their connection to nature. The objective is to measure change in a group's connection to nature, through the Connectedness to Nature Scale (CNS, Mayer & Frantz, 2004). The population was a group of 24 people who participated in an Outdoor Adventure Centers fall break trip to Arkansas. The sample for this study consisted of eight total responses, and there was a total that answered within the CNS in a retrospective pre-post manner. These samples were analyzed using a T-test run to examine that there was significant change. This one-tailed T-test made a significant difference on the results due to the limited sample size. The sample size played a significant part in the results and should therefore be taken with that in mind. All the individuals surveyed showed some improvement in their CNS score, except one respondent whose scores did not vary.