Wonder - Intra-action - Sustainability - Regeneration
A Practical Guide for k-12 Classrooms Connecting with nature
The WISR Framework is designed so that a continuum of action toward a regenerative world may emerge. The letters “WISR” stand for Wonder, Intra-action, Sustainability, and Regeneration.
WISR was created to reconnect learners of all ages with nature, providing them with fluid zones within which to appreciate the depth of their connections.
WISR is not meant to be a prescriptive model, rather it is an invitation to take learning deeper through embodied and connected experiences in and with nature. It is a call to think and act to heal the planet, through the ripples that local engagement initiates.
Why Do We Need WISR?
Our world is in a period of unprecedented ecological crises, with roots in our unhealthy relationships with our natural environments. WISR is a guide and an anchor to develop appreciation, awareness, thinking and action within learning experiences to nurture ecological mindsets and healthier relationships to resolve the crises we face. WISR is intended to help us reconnect with nature through the learning experiences we create and share.
Who Is WISR Designed For?
Educators often struggle with how to create learning experiences that help us re-discover our place within and as part of nature. WISR supports this by providing learners of all ages with fluidity within which to appreciate the depth of their connections with the ecosystem(s) they exist within. WISR may guide educators as they design, respond to, and reflect upon learning experiences. With intentionality, we find inspiration in ourselves and the relationships with others to nurture a more ecological future.
How Does WISR Work?
The WISR framework knows no beginning and no end. It is circular because it is self-realizing.
WISR is composed of four flows: Wonder, Intra-action, Sustainability, Regeneration. Each of these represents an area along a continuum of experiences within nature. Each flow provides a common language for planning, engaging, and embodying our connections. There is no hierarchy or progression, no beginning and no ending; only awareness of what might unfold between humans, nature and the natural world.
WISR spirals because it is self-realizing: Wonder emerges into Intra-action in the same ways that Regeneration creates the conditions for Wonder to unfold. Wonder and Interaction are considered “Awareness” flows, while Sustainability and Regeneration are “Embodied” flows. This is why WISR is useful to use as entry points into countless possibilities. There are no steps because there is no ladder. There are just experiences that flow into one another, each representing different depths of connection with nature. WISR is not a spectrum of progression so much as a map of where we are at this particular moment with this particular experience, all the while aware that we have the potential to move within the map or draw new maps.
The WISR Framework Explained (With Examples)
Of the WISR framework’s four zones; Wonder and Intra-action are considered “Awareness” zones, while Sustainability and Regeneration are “Embodied” zones.
Imagine yourself hiking in the forest. When you are in the zone of awareness, you observe the beauty that surrounds you, noticing the colours and shapes of the plants and soil, paying close attention to where you walk, perhaps with a sense of play and freedom.
When you are in the zone of embodied, you let go and silence the chatter in your mind, feeling the ground under you, smelling the trees and the flowers, not by bending down, but rather letting the wind carry the scent to your nose and noticing, without noticing.
You are present, you are relaxed, you are connected to this moment and where you are.
Wonder
Learning is engagement with the natural world through an expression of awe, enchantment, mystery and curiosity either outside in nature, or contained to an indoor space.
Wonder is playful; a sensation of feeling lost in a moment and not concerning oneself with time, vocabulary, reason or logic. Wonder is that childhood excitement of asking questions and being thirsty for knowledge; wide-eyed and enthralled by the experience and unaware of distractions that might break concentration. By allowing oneself to be fully present, wonder allows thoughts and feelings to flow without intention, responding to the dynamic interplay between self, others and nature.
Let’s think about that hike as an example: you walk in a natural environment relishing in the full sensory experience. You might notice the opening in the bark and become curious about whether something has made this crevice its home; maybe the glistening threads woven from nearby twigs offer clues to the mystery. You listen to birdsong and look up to notice a variety of colourful plumage perched on branches overhead.
You wonder what and why they chatter, whilst also feeling the artistic chinks of light streaming through the leaves and branches casting twinkling lights and shadows on your skin and the ground below.
Outside, your learners might look at the activities of all the life forms around a tree and notice a team of ants carrying a crumb bigger than their bodies. Your learners wonder where the ants are going, how they communicate, and how their anatomies allow for such strength.
Indoors, your learners might marvel at film footage of a mighty volcanic eruption, feeling power and vulnerability, imagining what that must feel like to witness first-hand. You might handle coastal objects such as shells, rocks, driftwood, and seaweed to experience textures that might later be used unknowingly by you in ocean poetry. You hold the shell to your ears and become entranced by the sounds of the coast, hearing the waves and the vastness of the water.
When learners are left to explore on their own and experience stimuli that enliven the senses, they become immersed in the moment. This allows the learner to embrace ignorance, feel open to possibilities and to express Wonder.
Intra-action
Learning is connection and empathy with nature as a result of direct, first-hand experiences between all things in the environment, the living and the non-living.
When we activate our senses, we open up possibilities, which nurtures relationships with others that are constantly exchanging, influencing and working inseparably. Intra-action focuses on the dynamic interplay between all things in the environment that create a connection, which then leads to questioning, reasoning and logic. In turn, this brings more intention and knowledge to our thinking now, moving away from feeling entranced by the moment and moving towards deliberate and conscious thought and action. Here, we understand that we are constantly in a state of both flux and oneness with ourselves and within nature.
This is not the same as interaction, the process whereby an individual arrives at an experience ready to contribute its silo part and the human perspective is the only worthy narrator. More than that, Intra-action is about the whole event itself, the experiences within the relationships rather than enforced from outside of it. This is also not necessarily the same as appreciating natural beauty - this is more the flow of Wonder.
Intra-action acknowledges how the whole group or things collected have value, are worthy and are as equally important to the experience as the others. This develops empathy for the living and non-living by appreciating that we all experience and interpret the world differently.
Returning to the hiking example, you take learners up a muddy hill, grabbing onto the trees to help your ascent. You listen to and feel the squelchiness of the ground, considering the dynamic relationship between foot, boot, mud and water. The squelching experience just wouldn't be the same if any one of those were missing! Someone comes across a bird’s nest.
Everyone stops to analyze the construction and you question how the birds build with strength, delicacy and so much more. Maybe you replicate this through your own constructions using similar materials, empathizing with challenges that birds face along the way. You understand more about the balance of conditions that are needed to build such a nest, whilst listening to the sounds of rustling leaves and watching the birds take flight from the branches. You listen deeply to everything around you.
Ask yourself what it is like not to have all the answers and to learn alongside other groups or things, fostering relationships and care for others along the way. Empathy for nature develops from this mindful Intra-action and in turn, transforms past behaviours.
Sustainability
Learning as guided by a set of ethics which emphasize balance of energy and resources in nature.
“Learning as change” engages the whole person and their relationship with the nautre. “Learning as change” engages the whole person and their relationship with nature. Thinking and action are intended to preserve and care for the living and non-living, understanding the interrelated, interdependence of healthy relationships in the ecosystem.
You are beginning to move from awareness to embodiment, using WISR. Connections to nature are less deliberate and more unconscious. This is the flow where mindset shifts, so that our relationship with nature is a way of life, not deliberate action. This is where inner values and outward actions become one.
This is the flow where going for a hike in nature comes naturally, it is part of who you are. Learners don’t view the hike as an out of the ordinary event. They come ready and feel courageous. Everyone takes care of each other and their surroundings. They leave no trace in the forest and only take their joy and memories.
Regeneration
Learning as honouring the unique essence of every member of nature.
This is a journey into novelty. Experiences that fit into life’s regenerative impulse, improving and adding to that ecosystem. Thinking and acting in terms of capacity rather than outcome, process rather than product. Each of these ecosystems is a whole onto itself and each whole works with an infinite number of other wholes in a dynamic of reciprocal development.
In this zone, we perpetually (and often unconsciously) ask ourselves whether our actions are life-affirming or not. We consider the long-term and ecosystemic implications of everything we do. We think, sense, feel and intuit equally, connecting our minds, bodies, and spirits with others and nature. Our relationships are based on respecting the unique essence of all life.
On our hike, we are attuned with the cycles and rhythms of nature. We are connected to others, to nature, to nature, to ourselves.
More than acting to keep nature intact, we see ourselves as part of nature and we accept what the earth gives us as a gift, remembering to gift back, to honour our relationships with others. On our hike, we don’t even think about the hike. We are present yet relaxed, in the moment, with the natural world.
Putting the WISR Framework into Context
The WISR Framework is not a progression or a ladder to climb, where the highest rung is the greatest achievement.
WISR is not a progression or a ladder to climb, where the highest rung is the greatest achievement. It is a regenerative design, meant to foster mindfulness of the connections we make with nature through the learning experiences we create and share. There is no right or wrong, there is only where we are and how we move toward life-affirming mindsets and actions. There is no model, there are no best practices, there is only context. WISR is about nurturing healthy relationships with the natural world, the living and non-living. These relationships provide meaning to our learning experiences as pronouns shift from I to We.
Using WISR will open up possibilities for embodied learning, which research shows leads to deeper and broader learning. It is meant to be embedded in curriculum in the same way it is meant to reconcile the separation of humans and nature. WISR is not an add-on, it is a way of being and becoming. Yet it also allows all educators to shift their thinking and actions at their own pace: since there is no right or wrong, there is only encouragement to take first steps.
WISR is intended to foster mindfulness, action, and ways of life that, if we added each and every one of us, would reverse the damage of the Anthropocene and create the context to heal the planet.
