Developing Connectedness to Nature in Urban Outdoor Settings: A Potential Pathway Through Awe, Solitude, and Leisure.

Outdoor leisure experiences may represent an understudied yet effective pathway to promote connectedness to nature for urban park visitors. In contrast to outdoor recreation, this critical essay argues outdoor leisure more heavily emphasizes eudaimonic sentiments and intrinsic motivation in comparison with the goal-oriented and hedonic nature of outdoor recreation. It is further argued that two specific social psychological constructs, awe and solitude, may be especially useful in promoting leisure experiences in urban outdoor spaces. Relevant philosophical and social psychological literature is reviewed and synthesized to outline how land managers and environmental educators may facilitate experiences of awe and solitude to better promote contexts for experiencing outdoor leisure in urban parks. Specifically, reviewed literature suggests that utilizing the recreation opportunity spectrum framework and co-creative processes may be an effective path forward in better supporting urban park environments that are conducive to awe, solitude, and leisure. The review and synthesis of this research may ultimately guide environmental educators, land managers, and researchers in ways to more effectively support connectedness to nature via outdoor leisure experiences as an outcome for visitors to outdoor urban spaces.

"Pick your team wisely": A case study of a long-standing research-practice partnership.

Research-practice partnerships (RPP) provide opportunities to connect researchers, practitioners, and/or community development professionals in meaningful ways, thereby improving the quality of research, evaluation, and practice in communities. Yet, there is still much to learn about how successful partnerships between researchers and practitioners develop. Historically, research on this topic has emphasized challenges that prevent RPP from developing to their highest potential, with limited information available on ways to promote RPP and how to ensure RPP are mutually beneficial for participants. However, research on partnerships more generally, such as multisector partnerships, can contribute meaningfully to the RPP field. We present an in-depth case study on a successful, long-term partnership. In this study, we pull from the broader partnership literature to explore contexts that are likely to promote partnerships, as well as the activities that can strengthen RPP. Findings focus on addressing ways to promote RPP and highlight the importance of preexisting factors, such as a culture that values both researcher and practitioner expertise, history, and chemistry between partners. Additionally, non-professional space and time, productive disagreements, clear but evolving roles, and shared power were found to strengthen collaboration within the partnership. Specific advice for anyone considering joining an RPP is also discussed.

A multi-dimensional measure of pro-environmental behavior for use across populations with varying levels of environmental involvement in the United States.

Researchers continue to explore ways to understand and promote pro-environmental behavior (PEB) amongst various populations. Despite this shared goal, much debate exists on the operationalization and the dimensionality of PEB and how it is measured. This piecemeal approach to measurement has limited the ability to draw conclusions across studies. We address limitations associated with previous measures of PEB by developing a multi-dimensional scale that is validated across both a general population of individuals residing in the United States as well as a group of individuals associated with a pro-environmental organization. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and reliability estimation were conducted for the developed measure across these two populations. Measurement invariance testing was also utilized to assess the psychometric stability of the scale across the two groups. Results indicated an 11 item scale was best fitting with two sub-scales: private and public behaviors. Implications for research and practice are discussed.