Sustainable Outdoor Education: Organisations Connecting Children and Young People with Nature through the Arts

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Thanks to the editors for the opportunity to comment on the submitted article: “ Sustainable outdoor education: Organisations connecting children and young people with nature through the arts.“

In the abstract, I recommend clearly formulating the goal, methods and results (including limits), which are presented in the text.

The authors work with appropriate literary sources (but can be extended). The submitted text can be considered as a professional study and I recommend it for publication after modifications.

Author Response

Reviewer 1:

Thank you very much for these constructive comments, we very much appreciate the time taken to provide them.

In the abstract, I recommend clearly formulating the goal, methods and results (including limits), which are presented in the text.

• Thank you for this comment. While the goal, methods and results are already included in the abstract, we have edited the abstract to include limitations, as suggested.

The authors work with appropriate literary sources (but can be extended).

• We have added in a number of additional references throughout the paper, as suggested.

Many thanks again for your helpful comments on our manuscript, we very much appreciate the time taken to undertake reviews.

Reviewer 2 Report

This article is interesting, but there is something that needs to be strengthened related to the concept of eco-capabilities.

Author Response

Reviewer 2:

Thank you very much for taking the time to review our article, it is much appreciated.

This article is interesting, but there is something that needs to be strengthened related to the concept of eco-capabilities.

• Thank you very much for this comment. Whilst eco-capabilities provides the theoretical underpinning for this paper, we are conscious that we are presenting and discussing new data and we did not want to forefront the eco-capabilities research. We have provided references to the relevant research papers which are all available open access for people to read for further information.

Many thanks again for your helpful comments on our manuscript, we very much appreciate the time taken to undertake reviews.

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors, after carefully reading your manuscript I suggest it to be accepted in present form.

Author Response

Reviewer 3:

Thank you very much for taking the time to review our article, it is much appreciated.

No suggestions for amendments made.

Reviewer 4 Report

This paper reports on  findings from a survey of creative practitioners delivering arts-in-nature practice. Overall the study is justified by a general interest in improving mental health of young and the conducted survey is reported in a straight-forward and clear manner. A weakness is that the study is predominantly situated in a UK context and would benefit from more of an international outlook.

 

The section that could primarily be improved is the conclusions. There are some specific issues: It is stated that "There may be many more organisations and individual practitioners delivering similar activities that were not contacted using this sampling strategy, however we are confident that within the time frame and means available the data provides a good indication of current practice across England. ".  However, given the very specific interest in the intersection of art and nature it does not seem like there should be a much greater numer of similar activities. If the authors sense there is, they should provide a more detailed argument supporting this. Also, it might be of interest to provide some interpretation of the number - should it be considered historically low/high, is it low/high in international comparison etc? It is stated on p- 12 e.g. that "in the context of England an historic lack of policy around outdoor education, and environmental and sustainability education in particular". However, no reference is provided to support this". Finally, the final recommendations seem rather vaguely grounded in the results of the study (p. 13, lines 644 and on). Also, I would recommend the authors to consider implications in terms of future research in particular in relation to the international research community.

Author Response

Reviewer 4:

Thank you very much for these constructive comments, we very much appreciate the time taken to provide them.

A weakness is that the study is predominantly situated in a UK context and would benefit from more of an international outlook.

• Thank you for this helpful suggestion. Although the context of this study is the UK, we have added in reference to international contexts to better situate the work (e.g. Mann et al., 2021; Neville et al., 2022; Dyment and Potter, 2021)).

 

It is stated that "There may be many more organisations and individual practitioners delivering similar activities that were not contacted using this sampling strategy, however we are confident that within the time frame and means available the data provides a good indication of current practice across England. ".  However, given the very specific interest in the intersection of art and nature it does not seem like there should be a much greater numer of similar activities. If the authors sense there is, they should provide a more detailed argument supporting this.

• Thank you for this feedback it is a good point and, therefore, we have removed ‘many more’ and instead put ‘other’ as we feel this more accurately represents the current context.

 

Also, it might be of interest to provide some interpretation of the number - should it be considered historically low/high, is it low/high in international comparison etc?

• Thank you again for this comment – we agree that it would be interesting to explore this further, but we believe this would be a whole new study. For example, currently, with existing search tools it is not possible to identify organisations which no longer exist, and to be able to identify similar organisations internationally would require extensive searches using different languages and search terms.

 

It is stated on p- 12 e.g. that "in the context of England an historic lack of policy around outdoor education, and environmental and sustainability education in particular". However, no reference is provided to support this".

• We have added in two references to support this (Prince, 2019; Glackin and King, 2020).

 

The final recommendations seem rather vaguely grounded in the results of the study (p. 13, lines 644 and on).

• The recommendations have been developed carefully to be grounded on the results of the study; for example, the second recommendation around the use of community volunteers as a mechanism for adding capacity and supporting the sustainability of impact for arts-in-nature practice emerges from findings in 3.4, such as the lack of funding (3.4.1), use of volunteers (3.4.2), and need to find ways to make the practice more sustainable (3.4.3).

 

Also, I would recommend the authors to consider implications in terms of future research in particular in relation to the international research community.

• We have added in additional recommendations for future research in relation to work with organisations in international contexts.

Thank you very much again for taking the time to review our manuscript, it is very much appreciated.