#outdoor education

[jadafitch]

Cover sketch for I Love Birds, Nature Smarts Activity Book number 5! Not out until April 15th, but available for preorder now through Amazon and other retailers. PREORDER

[thatchickcanwrite]

I work in outdoor education, and you would not believe how often I get to do stuff like this (I love it). But imagine you also have 8-16 very excited elementary schoolers who all also want to hold the slug, or snail, or worm, or [insert bug here], and you have to protect the little friend from a horde of screaming, overly curious children. It's actually kind of the best.

This is actually my coworker's hands, but they are showing off a little spider they found to one of our students.

i like working at plant store. sometimes you ring up someone and there's a slug on their plant and so you're like "Oh haha you've got a friend there let me get that for you" and you put the slug on your hand for safekeeping but then its really busy and you dont have time to take the slug outside before the next customer in line so you just have a slug chilling on your hand for 15 minutes. really makes you feel at peace with nature. also it means sometimes i get to say my favorite line which is "would you like this free slug with your purchase"

[veggiechannel]

La vita moderna ci sta portando a perdere contatto e connessione con la natura, approfondiamo con Raffaella Cataldo, esperta di apprendimento naturale, in una nuova intervista in collaborazione con Terra Nuova, il significato e i benefici dell'outdoor education e della pedagogia del selvatico.

[k12academics]

Oak Grove's residential program reimagines the High School boarding experience. Set in the peaceful and beautiful Ojai Valley, just 90 minutes from Los Angeles, Oak Grove offers flexible 7-day boarding to domestic and international students in 9th through 12th grades. Our family-style boarding facility provides a safe and friendly living and learning environment. Because some boarders live within an hour or two from Ojai, weekends can be spent with family, if desired.

An Oak Grove School education will include opportunities for hands-on and project-based learning, as well as traditional academic coursework. We believe in collaborating and investigating together and encouraging students to explore, question, and engage the world around them. While memorization has a place, students are also asked to think deeply, approach learning from multiple perspectives, and make connections across disciplines. Beyond the classroom, we encourage self-expression through art, music, and drama, and selflessness through community service opportunities. At Oak Grove, we will empower you with responsibility and ownership of your own learning so you are fully prepared to meet the demands of college and beyond.

[softhomemama]

For me, true joy is watching them dig their hands into the grass, touch the trees and flowers, play with sticks and mud. Have you ever watched a child discover nature? There’s something almost sacred about it, isn’t there? A little moment of pure magic.

I think it’s so important to give them the time and space to explore the world slowly, without rushing. Don’t you agree? And it’s not just a mother’s instinct—research, like studies published in Frontiers in Psychology (2021), shows that being in nature during the first three years of life helps cognitive development, reduces stress, and builds a deeper connection with the environment. A child playing with leaves, stones, and mud isn’t just having fun… they’re growing in the most natural and healthy way.

But how many kids today really get that chance? Ecologist Robert Pyle talks about extinction of experience: more and more children are growing up without ever climbing a tree, without getting their hands dirty in the soil. And when that connection is lost, something precious disappears—the ability to be amazed, to appreciate the beauty of creation.

That’s why I choose, every day, to give them these little moments: letting them touch the trees, pick flowers, and get messy in the mud. It’s not just play; it’s a seed planted in their heart… helping them grow with wonder, gratitude, and faith.

[meteorologistaustenlonek]

“Most of the day we’re stuck inside, and I think this would be a nice way to get out and see nature instead of just be in a classroom talking about it. We can like, look at stuff on a screen inside. But out here we can actually see the stuff like, and it’s better for us to be outside than inside all the time."

[ahedgehogonthesea]

Scenes from work lately

[outdoorsy-bitch]

Op has a good point, but also remember that this is partially by design. In conservation messaging, we push what the public will care about or relate to. Everyone knows what a bee is, we can use the goods domestic honeybees make to create a personal reference point. All new knowledge needs something to stick to in people's brains, so bees and monarchs are the metaphorical glue that we can add stuff onto.

Additionally, even if people don't care about less 'cute' species, we can use the species they do care about to help all insects. When monarchs started dying, the public went "Oh no, our pretty butterflies! How can we save them!?" Naturalists seen this as the opportunity it was, and pushed milkweed gardens, alongside other flowering plants. While it's true that milkweed is incredibly important for monarchs, it's also a reliable flowering plant that's native to many areas and comes back every year. A lot of times, milkweed is a plant it once and you're never able to get rid of it type of deal. This established reliable food sources for not only the butterflies, but also wasps, birds, moths, etc.

So I totally see where OP is coming from, it can be extremely frustrating when all you hear about are bees. But keep in mind that bees are the glue that we can add other knowledge to, and every bit of conservation helps the ecosystem as a whole!

"#Save the Birds!"

Imagine if there was a popular movement to "save the birds" but the only birds people knew about were chickens and maybe geese. So everyone proposes doing things like raising chickens in your backyard to save the birds.

There IS a strange disease affecting chickens that is a major threat to the poultry industry. It's just that at the same time there are devastating declines in other birds that no one is paying attention to.

Now imagine that you are one of the few people who knows that other birds exist. You have nothing against chickens. It's just that there are so many wild birds that need our help too. Everyone you meet is surprised when you inform them about these other birds.

All this time, the other birds can be seen right outside their windows. It's just that few people take the time to stop and notice them.

This is what "Save the bees" is like.

[kids-worldfun]

4 Fun Activities to Connect Kids With Nature

Children learn most effectively when given the freedom to explore, create, manipulate, and get hands-on. These concepts are uncomplicated, enjoyable, and require little preparation, and your little ones will thoroughly enjoy discovering the world around them. Easily incorporate these outdoor tasks into homeschool curricula or engage in structured outdoor activities with your children. Immerse…

[jasminedlowe]

Here's What I Get Out of Backpacking

There is something about having to carry all that you’re going to need to live in the wilderness for days on your back that makes you question your entire life. Hiking heals, but backpacking takes it up a notch as you discover what is most important.

There is something about having to carry all that you’re going to need to live in the wilderness for days on your back that makes you question your entire life. You begin to whittle down what you’re going to need to just the essentials as you pack. You find out what is important to you and in life in general as you carry the heavy weight of all your packing choices on the trail. You realize that…

[future-bog-teacher]

I delivered my first lesson plan in front of one of my classes today! They are all a few years ahead of me so it was pretty nerve wracking, but I think it went really well! It was a trauma informed/healing centric lesson about connectivity and environmental degradation geared towards K-2nd.

I wanted to focus on the feeling of helplessness a lot of young learners get from learning about the environment, and teach them it's okay to feel those big feelings, and even though there are bigger systems that hurt the Earth working together and building your community around helping the earth can still make a difference. I really wanted to emphasize that students can still help the earth without pollution coming through as an individual/carbon footprint issue. I have so many thoughts about where else I can go with the plans I have.

[k12academics]

Arthur Morgan School was founded by Elizabeth and Ernest Morgan in 1962 to provide a learning environment tailored for children in their early teenage years. Ernest Morgan was the elder son of Arthur Morgan. Arthur and his wife Lucy had cherished the idea of starting a small school in a rural setting that fostered initiative, responsibility, and imagination.

Many educators influenced Elizabeth Morgan in the formation of their philosophy of education, including Johann Pestalozzi, N.S.F. Grundtvig, Mahatma Gandhi, Maria Montessori, John Dewey, and Arthur Morgan. The philosophy and methods of these great educators emphasize the development of the whole person through a combination of study, work, and social interaction in a community. As leaders in progressive education they each valued practical education as an extremely important experience in order for men and women to be enlightened. In addition, they stress inner motivation and the responsibility of the individual as a part of the whole. To these ideas, Elizabeth her own Quaker values of simple living, consensus decision-making, and non-violent problem solving.

Both Elizabeth and Ernest Morgan were very active in many causes. Elizabeth collected workers’ songs from all over the world and used them to educate people about suppression and exploitation. She had been active in the struggle against the Ku Klux Klan persecutions and racist assaults in Georgia. She arranged protest marches and helped the strikers in their attempt at getting better pay and fair treatment. In most cases, she used music and song as a means to arouse people’s solidarity and to inform them of both traditions and visions. Early in their marriage both Elizabeth and Ernest had joined the Society of Friends, or Quakers. They felt that the Quaker way of silent worship, work for social justice, resistance to the military and violence, and equality for all people, especially women, were very consistent with their views. Today, AMS incorporates many Quaker traditions into its daily life.

Their youngest son Lee attended Camp Celo in Celo Community, North Carolina. In 1958, when the camp was about to be laid down by its owners, Elizabeth and Ernest decided to join another family, the Barrus’s, to continue the camp. It was at this time that Elizabeth decided to take the first steps to establish a school. The school would be able to become part of the Celo Health Education Corporation, the non-profit corporation that also governed the Celo Health Center. (In the 1990s, the school became its own financial entity with a volunteer Board and non-profit status.) Members of Celo Community gave her lots of encouragement and they were willing to provide land for a negligible cost.

From 1958 until the school opened in 1962 family work camps were held in the summer to improve the few buildings that were on the property. A long, low barn for chickens, basement room, and brooder house were turned into a kitchen, dining room, classrooms, workshop, and laundry. This experience revealed to Elizabeth and Ernest Morgan the enthusiasm junior high students had for doing real work.