Narrative Adventure Quest
Place-based educational journeys
"Being able to follow a narrative is crucial for efficient learning and understanding of almost any topic in the curriculum. It also enhances our manipulation of possibilities – which is what enables students to apply something learned in one context to another."
~ Kieran Egan, An Imaginative Approach to Teaching
Putting the quest back into question...
In partnership with researchers from the University of Toronto's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), Headwaters has developed a Narrative Adventure Quest (NAQ) program.
Situated within a long tradition of scholarly research about the power of using narrative structures in human cognition, the Narrative Adventure Quest framework is a highly versatile pedagogical method that seamlessly crosses curricular boundaries. By situating students in their local community and natural environment, NAQ programs put the search back into research and the quest back into question.
This page outlines a brief summary of the philosophical basis for NAQ lessons and highlights key research which has inspired this form of pedagogy.
The goal for NAQ is to enrich student agency by instilling meaningful hope for their community and environment while making substantial curriculum connections.
Discovering Our Place
Past, Present, & Future
NAQ Pedagogical Approach, Aligned with Your Curriculum
"As they become the authors of their own adventure, students learn about the local histories and characteristics of their environment while connecting to their imagined futures which they can meaningfully create beyond the classroom."
By infusing every NAQ with local histories and ecological connections, every student learns with rather than on the land, and in rather than about their local community.
Like any narrative, each quest has dynamic characters (played by students) who are inspired by real world people, places, or beings (such as John Graves Simcoe, the Don River valley, or an old oak tree), and who move through a unique plot inspired by their local settings. Students must navigate real, historical narrative events and points of conflict, and find resolutions along the way while using their knowledge, critical thinking skills, and imaginations. As they become the authors of their own adventure, students learn about the local histories and characteristics of their environment while connecting to their imagined futures which they can meaningfully create beyond the classroom.
Following a narrative arc structure, the Quest begins by assigning local characters to students and guiding them on a journey around their local community and natural environment as their characters. Starting in the past and moving to the present, students come to understand through role play the complex and interwoven historical relationships of culture and ecology that have shaped their present-day home. From this understanding, the final leg of the Quest involves the imagination, creative-problem solving, and real-world agency wherein the students determine – through the voices of their characters and taking into account the past and present – what they would like the future of their community and local natural environment to be like. The Quest ends with the possibility for students to take-on action projects aimed at benefiting their local community of intertwined human and natural worlds.
As quest facilitators, our role is to guide students along an adventure that makes numerous curriculum connections. The pedagogical framework is designed to offer an experiential learning opportunity that reflects an interactive production of knowledge between students, their local community, and their environment.
Sample Curricular Course Connection
Exploring Canadian Geography, Grade 9 (CGC1W)
NAQ Pedagogical Method and Philosophy for Education
Theoretical Background | Supporting Research
The essential benefits of using narrative structure occur when teachers embed their subject knowledge in the contexts of its original invention or human uses. Once it is given a narrative, the learning becomes more memorable and meaningful for students.
By using a narrative approach to curriculum, students begin to make important connections across concepts and subjects, creating a more holistic understanding and overall educational experience.
In 1995, Kieran Egan and Hunter McKewan co-edited a collection of essays from several other prominent scholars who all proposed a "turn towards narrative structure" in teaching. Since their initial publication, researchers have continued to inspire imaginative methods of teaching with narratives across every school subject.
More recent work from Philip Waters serves as an especially important nexus of related theory and practice. Since 2011, Waters has primarily studied the uses of narrative, play, and imagination in physical education programs to see how these methods can enhance students’ ecological literacy and feelings of environmental altruism. Connecting his work to scholarship about the contemporary effects of eco-anxiety in children and adolescents, it is clear that now, more than ever, students can benefit from new and imaginative methods of teaching.
"Connecting this work to scholarship about the contemporary effects of eco-anxiety in children and adolescents, it is clear that now, more than ever, students can benefit from new and imaginative methods of teaching."
"There is probably not a single school subject in which stories play no part at all. For even when the material being taught is not itself a story, the lesson usually includes a number of narrative segments all the same. These take the form of jokes, recollections, testimony, anecdotes, illustrations, examples, and more. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a lesson totally devoid of narrative in one form or another."
~ Philip W. Jackson, Narrative in Teaching, Learning, and Research
The Headwaters Team
As a boutique organization with an intentionally small team, everything we do is thoughtful, purposeful, and highly personalized to the needs of our partners. Schools get to know us, and we get to know them.
With combined decades of experience in outdoor education curriculum development, academic research, and wilderness trip guiding, logistics, and risk management, the Headwaters team brings a unique combination of expertise that sets us apart. Our team has led and overseen wilderness trips in the Northwest Territories; guided Indigenous cultural canoe trips for Québec CEGEPs; worked and conducted academic research at outdoor schools from Ontario to the Yukon; regularly present at conferences, publish papers, and sit on Boards and advisory councils for outdoor educators; hold Master's degrees, teaching certifications, and industry leading wilderness guide qualifications.
Rather than separate the academic researcher, the curriculum designer, the teacher, and the wilderness guide, we bring together these skill sets toward a common cause – developing and delivering extraordinary educational experiences. By putting all of these skills together, in one team, we create a strength of united purpose that is reflected in the quality and uniqueness of our programs.
As professionals in outdoor education, we’re aware of the widely varying degrees of exposure, comfort levels, and expected outcomes held by schools, staff, parents, and students alike. Given this dynamic, we strive to have our programs be as customizable as possible, to meet schools where they're at, viewing our relationship with schools less as a third party provider and more as a collaborator in crafting exceptional educational experiences.
"To love a person or a place is to accept moral responsibility for its thriving."
~ Kathleen Dean Moore