Educating for Sustainability through Leave No Trace for Life

Given the current environmental crises, the outdoor profession must play a part in helping our society transition to more sustainable systems and behaviors. Despite years of calls for the outdoor profession to develop and implement curricula aimed at cultivating a sustainability worldview in our participants, we have yet to see any widespread adoption of sustainability curricula. We argue that the nearly ubiquitous Leave No Trace (LNT) curriculum, although originally designed to address environmental impacts only within recreation areas, can serve as a springboard to teach and promote education for sustainability through commitments to “LNT for Life.”