NOEC 2024 Keynotes and Dr. Brian Nettleton Memorial Lecture
NOEC 2024 Memorial Lecture
MEMORIAL LECTURE SESSION WEDNESDAY 4TH OF DECEMBER – 4:45 – 5:30 pm
NOEC 2024 will continue the cherished tradition of featuring the Brian Nettleton Keynote Lecture. Introduced by Outdoors Victoria in 2018 this lecture honours Dr Brian Nettleton, who passed away in 2017. Brian was a pioneer of Outdoor Education and place-based experiences in Australia. His influential work profoundly shaped the field of Outdoor Education in Victoria and inspired many professionals.
This year, NOEC 2024 will feature a keynote speech by two outstanding individuals who embody Brian’s values and commitment to outdoor and environmental education in Australia: Dr Val Nicholls and Sandy-Allen Craig.
Inspired by Brian Nettleton’s innovative and creative approach to life and education, Val and Sandy, will reflect on the wholistic well-being of the Educator and consider the way in which their own continued, extracurricular nature-based activity may support a sustainable OE career and lifelong well-being.
Read more about past Brian Nettleton Memorial Lectures here.
Dr Val Nicholls
Dr Val Nicholls exemplifies lifelong growth and adventure, seamlessly blending her personal and professional journeys. At 72, she continues to challenge herself, emphasizing the importance of daily reflection and the journey over the destination. With over 30 years in Nature-Based Adventure Therapy, Val’s diverse career includes roles as a Speech and Language Pathologist, leading international ceramicist, and outdoor educator. Her PhD explores the therapeutic potential of peaceful solitude within adventure. Val is a Life and Founder member of the Australian Association of Bush Adventure Therapy and facilitates the CYCT’s Women on Boats program. Her insights on resilience and risk-taking inspire continuous personal and professional growth.
Sandy-Allen Craig
Sandy has a broad range of experience and expertise from across the Outdoor sector. She has worked as an outdoor educator and leader in developing and implementing Outdoor Education programs and courses in universities and schools over the past 4 decades. She has published across a wide range of topics important to the delivery and development of programs which use the natural world. Sandy has been awarded an Australian Learning and Teaching Council citation, for outstanding contribution to student learning. She is a board member of Outdoors Victoria, Outward Bound Australia and an advisory board member of The National Centre for Outdoor Risk and Readiness. She is an executive member of Outdoor Education Australia. As recognition of her sustained and ongoing contribution to the sector she has been honoured as a Fellow of Outdoor Education Australia and The Australian Council for Health Physical Education and Recreation.
NOEC 2024 Keynotes
Dr. Benny Wilson
KEYNOTE SESSION THURSDAY 5TH OF DECEMBER – 10:15 – 11:00 am
Dr. Benny Wilson is a Jagera man who has strong relationships with Country in Meanjin/Brisbane, Karulkiyalu Country around Brewarrina, and Darkinjung Country along the Central Coast of New South Wales.
His research mainly concerns story and its intersection with place-based pedagogies. The work that he has become mainly known for is Country as Teacher, which is an approach based on the wisdom of his old people and was formed in partnership with his brother David Spillman. This work, which was the central focus of his doctoral thesis, largely concerns how to develop a pedagogical approach that centralises the importance of Australian teachers exploring personal and shared stories to develop strong and reciprocal relationships with the places they inhabit.
In 2022, Benny won the AAUT Neville Bonner Award for University Teaching and the ACT NAIDOC Indigenous Scholar of the Year for this work.
Benny is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Canberra working primarily in initial teacher education.
Dr. Jeff Jackson
KEYNOTE SESSION THURSDAY 5TH OF DECEMBER – 2:20 – 3:00 pm
Dr. Jeff Jackson has an impressive history of mistakes and failures. Going way back to his early days of river guiding, more could be expected to go wrong than right; this includes one canoe expedition in northern Canada that altogether failed to locate the destination river. This is not an advisable path to follow. What a track record like this does do is create a curiosity and career track focussed on the factors that make things go right or wrong.
Jeff studies how organizational structure influences performance, ranging from safety culture measures to training and data tracking, finding that what we do right has a greater predictive value on safety performance than does the things we do wrong. He has worked with provincial governments on recreation policy development, insurance providers on rating systems, and over one hundred outdoor organizations and tourism operators with risk planning. He is also an award-winning Professor and the Coordinator of Canada’s skills intensive Outdoor Adventure Diploma Programme and still river guides in the summer.
He still makes mistakes but is much better equipped to explain them now than when he started out in this gig.
Manjul Prateeti
KEYNOTE SESSION FRIDAY 6TH OF DECEMBER – 9:45 – 10:25 am
Graduate of Moray House School of Education, University of Edinburgh. Adventure enthusiast and passionate outdoor learning facilitator, Manjul Prateeti has spent the last fourteen years working internationally from India to America and now Australia helping to develop and facilitate quality outdoor education programs.
