Tramping the Mobius: A Curriculum of Oral and Literary Tradition as a Primer for Rural Education

In this article, we illustrate how outdoor activities that foster the development of human relationships with intact ecosystems are an essential aspect of environmental education. Through a curriculum of oral and literary traditions, this article takes up Ed Rickett’s and Aldo Leopold’s life work and theories (shared by Joseph Campbell and John Steinbeck) as they recount the genesis of Pacific Tidal Pool ecology, also applied to poetry, taxonomy, and philosophies that involved studying nature. Ongoing experiential decline has significantly altered environmental praxis leaving older environmentalists as among the last of significantly spatially shaped generations. We investigate how these naturalists mediate Indigenous perspectives and settler perspectives by paying close attention to the natural world. This relationship demands a journey into those places to uncover how place and story shape eco-hermeneutics.