Local Peaks, Global Learning: Mountains as Powerful Learning Environments

How can mountains become classrooms? What can they teach us about sustainability, identity, resilience, and our relationship with the natural world?

These were some of the guiding questions behind Local Peaks, Global Learning, the fifth edition of the ABC of Environmental Learning webinar series, organized by the Slovenian Institute for Adult Education (SIAE).

This year’s series brought together educators, researchers, mountaineers, and community practitioners from across Europe and beyond to explore how mountain landscapes can serve as powerful spaces for environmental learning. From Arctic outdoor education to Himalayan expeditions, from place-based pedagogy to participatory action research, the lectures highlighted mountains as spaces of embodied learning, reflection, and transformation.

Below you can revisit each lecture.

Matej Ogrin

Mountain Oriented Education within the ESD Concept

How have mountains shaped human societies—and how can they shape learning today?

In the opening lecture, Matej Ogrin explores the meaning of mountainous landscapes across history and examines their special place in Slovenian cultural identity. He then turns toward education for sustainable development (ESD), discussing how mountains offer unique opportunities for outdoor learning, environmental awareness, and place-based educational practice.

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Jan Höper & Cecilie Harr Moen

Where Is the Glacier? – Exploring the Arctic-Alpine Landscape

What can we learn by walking through a landscape—from sea to summit?

In this engaging lecture, Jan Höper and Cecilie Harr Moen guide us through the Arctic-Alpine environment of Northern Norway. Combining outdoor education, playful pedagogy, Sámi perspectives, and the Norwegian tradition of friluftsliv, they show how landscapes themselves can become teachers.

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Jacob Sheetz-Willard

On Reading Maps: Metaphor, Materiality, and Adventures into the Unknown

What does it mean to “read” a map—and what does that teach us about education?

Drawing on his work as a wilderness guide and educator in Colorado, Jacob Sheetz-Willard reflects on maps as both practical tools and powerful metaphors. His lecture invites us to think about navigation, uncertainty, and how educators help learners move through complex worlds.

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Viki Grošelj

My Meetings with the Himalayas

What do mountains teach us over a lifetime?

Renowned Slovenian alpinist Viki Grošelj shares stories and reflections from decades of mountaineering—from Slovenia’s local peaks to the world’s highest summits. His lecture is both a personal journey and a meditation on perseverance, humility, responsibility, and human connection with high mountain environments.

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Giulia Mascadri, Andrea Membretti & Roberta Clara Zanini

Skills for Dwelling: Knowledge Production and Cultural Change through Participatory Action Research in the Italian Mountains

How can mountain communities create shared futures?

In the closing lecture, Giulia Mascadri, Andrea Membretti, and Roberta Clara Zanini explore participatory action research in the Italian Alps and Apennines. Their work highlights mountains as places where knowledge is co-created and where communities can imagine more sustainable and socially just futures.

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We thank all speakers and participants for making this year’s ABC of Environmental Learning a thoughtful and inspiring exchange across disciplines, places, and mountain cultures.

The investment is co-financed by the Republic of Slovenia and the European Union from the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+).