Informal education is the wise, respectful and spontaneous process of cultivating learning. It works through conversation, and the exploration and enlargement of experience.

(Jeffs, T. and Smith, M. K. (1997, 2005, 2011). ‘What is informal education?’)

At Guardian Adventures, we take Informal Education quite seriously.  The adventures that we run for our highest level of immersion allow for the participants to have both autonomy (free choice) as well as agency (ability to affect the outcome).  Our staff are adept at creating a story arc that can adapt to the participants’ choices and allow them to explore the world in a way that we may not have predicted.  In doing so, we are creating a truly immersive and innovative experience where the student is driven by their own curiosity to solve the mysteries they discover and to play the role of a hero in a journey of their own making.

We see informal education (the environment and offering) and informal learning (the process driven by the student) as being superb supplements to form education where students are directed by teachers and administration on what to learn and how to learn it.  Because informal learning is student-directed, the student determines the best approach and desired outcome… which is what most of our learning experience in life outside of school.

Are you interested in introducting an informal education environment or program?  Fill out the form below and let’s talk.

The Importance of Informal Education by Guardian Adventures CEO and Founder, Meghan Gardner

“Informal learning experiences, in contrast, build on the diverse interests and curiosity of learners and support their self-motivated inquiries. The valued outcomes of informal learning are often particularly rich in contributions to social and emotional development, to identity and motivation, to developing skills of collaboration and mutual support, and to persistence in the face of obstacles and in inquiry on time scales of weeks, months, and even years. Informal learning activities also often result in products and accomplishments of which students are justly proud and for which product-appropriate measures of quality are needed.” –  MIT MacArthur

How to Encourage Informal Learning in your Organization