Living in history: Recognising the challenges for outdoor educators and taking on the pedagogical responsibility (the 2023 Brian Nettleton Lecture)

History is not just in the past, as it affects the present and future. In this sense, outdoor educators are living in history, especially when we teach in place, on Country. Acknowledging the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander owners of unceded lands is a regular practice in Australia, and one that should be very familiar to outdoor educators. Such acknowledgment assumes some affinity with the perspectives of First Nations peoples. But how do we understand these perspectives? Histories are important here, not as events of the past, but as events that continue to impact human-human and human-nature relationships. This paper presents arguments made in the Brian Nettleton Lecture of 2023 delivered by John Quay, along with the practical application of these arguments undertaken by Belinda Dalziel in her planning and teaching of the Outdoor and Environmental Studies course within the senior school Victorian Certificate of Education. John and Belinda are both non-Indigenous educators responding to the call by First Nations educators to take on some of the responsibility and challenge of teaching in this area, which is so crucial for outdoor education and outdoor environments, for Country, in Australia.