by editor | Aug 26, 2025 | Environmental Literacy, Equity and Inclusion, Indigenous Peoples & Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Tribes & Traditional Ecological Knowledge
Indigenous Perspectives
and Environmental Education:
Connecting Youth with Plants, Places,
and Cultural Traditions
INTRODUCTION
These are exciting times in our region. We are fortunate to live at the confluence of two currents: the growing integration of Indigenous perspectives in both formal and informal education, and a surge of cultural revitalization in Indigenous communities. In the state of Washington, the 2015 passage of Senate Bill 5433 requires public K-12 schools to teach Indigenous history, culture and sovereignty in collaboration with the tribes nearest their schools. Educators have a rich variety of curricular materials to draw upon, beginning with the Since Time Immemorial curriculum. In the state of Oregon, the 2017 passage of Senate Bill 13 Tribal History/Shared History has led to similar developments in curriculum creation and collaboration between schools and tribes. Simultaneously, Indigenous communities around the region are experiencing a dramatic and wide-ranging cultural resurgence, including language revitalization and the revival of traditional pre-colonial practices. This fertile convergence offers a wealth of new opportunities to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous educators and their students. This special edition’s essays, including contributions by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous practitioners, introduce you to these currents and opportunities by focusing on Indigenous relationships with the more-than-human world, and particularly our ties to our plant relatives. We hope that these essays will inspire and guide you as you explore ways to enhance your teaching by accurately and respectfully integrating Indigenous experience and knowledge.
—Rob Efird and Laura Lynn
Co-editors
by editor | Aug 26, 2025 | Environmental Literacy
Activating Schoolyards through Garden Enrichment
by Bekah Marten, WSU Clark County Extension
School Garden Coordinator
In my current role as a School Garden Coordinator in SW Washington state, I have been able to work alongside school staff to help develop garden programming at area elementary schools. Often the schools that I have partnered with are excited about establishing a school garden, but they struggle with how to incorporate the garden spaces into the daily rhythm of their classes or do not feel confident in knowing how to plan, plant and manage a garden. Creating garden enrichment programs in these schools has been a successful way to activate their outdoor learning spaces as well as overcome some of the barriers staff expressed.
Garden enrichment programs can be incorporated into the school day without taking time from classroom learning. They can be led by staff or by parent or community volunteers. These types of programs allow students to explore their schoolyard in a different way. Lastly, garden enrichment affords students an opportunity to share something about themselves as well as gain natural world experiences in a non-academic setting.
One example of this would be to host an open garden time during a school’s lunch recess. A recess garden program can scale based on your number of adult staff or volunteers and what your goals are for the program. It can meet once a week, every other week, or monthly. This is a low-cost program that can be run regardless of whether your school has a set garden space or growing area and would be open to all students in the school.
When designing a recess garden time, choose a theme for that week’s session. In the fall you may want to explore leaves, spiders, or squash. In the spring months, insects, birds, vegetables, flowers or weather are all great options. Once your theme is picked, choose activities or stations that will be accessible to both the youngest primary grades as well as hold the attention of older grade school kids. For example, providing found natural objects (leaves, twigs, cones, small stones, etc) and allowing kids to make temporary art with them is an accessible project for the youngest students while still allowing for older children to create more intricate art pieces.
I have found that setting up three stations helps to manage the flow of students through the garden area. In choosing station activities, I like to have one that is a hands on and exploratory, a creative station, and a “Did you know” type station where student’s can learn something about the given weekly theme. This allows for all learning styles and interest levels to be accommodated. The “Did you know” stations are a great opportunity for students who have prior gardening experiences or knowledge about the natural world to share those stories or information with the station adult and their peers. Staff have noticed that students who are often more reserved in class open up when they can share their personal stories or things they know in the garden.
Enrichment programs like this are a great experience for all involved. Many of the schools where I work have a student population that does not have immediate access to an outdoor space to explore. Their schoolyard and the loose structure of a recess garden program allows for that freedom of exploration, creativity and learning in an outdoor setting. This fall, one student shared his excitement with me about learning how to prepare a garden bed for winter. When I asked what was most exciting about it, he said that his grandmother really wanted to learn how to garden, and now he will be able to teach her. Even many of the parent volunteers share that they walk away having learned or discovered something new about the natural world around them.
Rebekah Marten is the School Garden Coordinator with the Clark County Master Gardener Program. Our program offers a variety of ways to support local schools. We work directly with teachers and classes in the garden with activities and lessons that teach about soil, plants, and insects.
by editor | Aug 26, 2025 | Outdoor education and Outdoor School, Place-based Education, Schoolyard Classroom
by Jane Tesner Kleiner
We know that for kids of all ages, play equals learning. And play comes in many forms, such as team sports, partner games and individual kids creating their own play. Play can also be active, passive or quiet. Learning also comes in many forms, such as visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and reading/writing. Kids love to explore, discover, question and dive into the world around them.
Many school campuses put the majority of focus on the building and what is happening inside and miss the opportunities to enhance the entire campus for learning, play and wellness.
What is there to gain by using the whole campus? A whole lot!
A Green Schoolyard looks at the entire property, from fence to fence, at the potential that could be across the whole property if money, time and energy were available. A majority of schools in our communities have landscape that is required by code, such as street or parking lot trees. But the majority of where people spend their time, is absent of nature and places to engage beyond active play and sports fields. When we consider adding nature and diverse features for all types of users and activities, we see a much greener campus.
As many of the articles, books and web pages in the Resource section will tell you, Green Schoolyards provide numerous benefits. There is also a role for every member of the school community to contribute to the on-going success of Green Schoolyard campuses. There can be a fine balance between meeting safety and security with diversifying features so that all can safely enjoy outdoors as well as feel welcome to enter and explore.
Here are just a few examples of benefits:
From the Children & Nature Network – Not only do Green Schoolyards promote learning through improved academic performance, increased attention span, and provide opportunities for diverse play, but also improving community cohesiveness, create activities for family engagement, improve health and wellness and enhance the environmental habitats.
Many research studies have indicated that:
- View of trees and natural settings outside of classroom windows can calm and reduce stress of students (and I can imagine staff, too)
- Diverse play features promote opportunities to increase social-emotional learning through working and playing with other students
- Working in gardens provides equitable access to nature for all students, regardless of age, academic capabilities or learning styles and provides mental health benefits
- Adding gardens and habitat features helps students feel ownership of their campus and can reflect the neighborhood needs for both in-school lessons and after school and breaks.
Other benefits that support implementing Green Schoolyard projects include:
- School districts tend to be significant land owners, providing opportunity to increase natural areas throughout urban and suburban communities.
- Projects can benefit mutual community goals, such as tree plantings and pollinator gardens to meet Climate Action Planning & Resiliency efforts, Urban Tree Canopy projects to reduce heat island effects, creating more public access to parks and green spaces with joint use agreements, etc.
- For middle and high schools, Career Education Technology (CTE) projects and programs can create on-site field stations and learning labs for horticulture, environmental science and natural resources. Green Schoolyards create equitable access for all students within walking distance of the building and provide an opportunity to have professional partners to support career-ready learning on-site.
- Stewardship and community service projects help nurture and care for the new spaces, features and plantings.
Accessible pathways provide equitable access to fitness on campuses, as well as walking loops for “walks and talks” or de-escalation walks.
- Green Schoolyards provide daily, weekly, monthly access to nature to familiarize students to nature, which is especially important for students who have little contact with nature. Learning about what to see, explore and understand at school will help build for successful trips away from campus, including Outdoor School trips are remote learning centers.
Campus improvements lend themselves to engaging community partnerships including donations of materials, expertise and activities.
The list of benefits vary, of course, by school, district and community. But each school has the opportunity to look at what their needs are for building success of students, staff and the community and finding projects that bring people and nature together.
by editor | Aug 26, 2025 | Gardening, Farming, Food, & Permaculture, Outdoor education and Outdoor School, Place-based Education, Schoolyard Classroom
Special Issue: Understanding Green Schoolyards
Picture a noisy elementary classroom, with bustling kids cleaning up from a morning of schoolwork. Then see the doors swing open and they head outside for some fresh air and play. Some students make a straight line right to their favorite equipment, like the swings. Some head for sports, like basketball or soccer. Still others may skip over to the play structure, start a game of tag or simply race around the equipment.
Does your vision stop there? Some, probably more than you think, need quiet space and decompression time, alone or with friends. Maybe they walk a loop path while chatting about a new pet, or maybe they give voice to their nervousness about an upcoming test. Given the chance, some would stroll over to a table under a tree, carrying a good book or some art supplies. If their school’s leadership is forward-thinking, some kids will head for a nature play area, where you may see them avoid the “lava” while traversing from log to boulder to log. Still others might roam the whole of the area, collecting leaves, twigs, flowers, and cones to craft something at the outdoor building tables.
If you have envisioned all of this, then in your mind’s eye you’ve built a Green Schoolyard. You might also hear terms such as Community Schoolyards and Living Schoolyards, as the concepts are similar – connect kids to nature in their neighborhoods.
“School” is about more than the indoor, classroom environment. A school’s entire campus creates an integrated experience for students, staff, and neighbors, both in terms of
activity and perception.
Green Schoolyards complement academic achievement. There is a significant body of research connecting children’s performance in school and the role that their environment plays. Views of nature, especially trees, from school windows, improve test scores for middle school students. 1
Green Schoolyards vary widely, but at their heart they offer natural elements that contribute to a diverse, safe, and welcoming setting for students and staff. (And, again, neighbors. Green Schoolyards enhance neighborhoods.) They may comprise any number of features, but you’ll mainly find that they promote hands-on learning, social-emotional connectivity, and a harnessing of the calming power of nature. Goodness knows, we need to reduce stress and anxiety while fostering confidence and creativity. Green Schoolyards tip that balance toward healthy development.
To learn more about bringing Green Schoolyard thinking to your campus, please keep reading. The contributing authors will showcase examples of projects, features, programs and ideas to transform any school. —JTK
by editor | Jan 5, 2025 | Environmental Literacy, Experiential Learning, Inquiry, Learning Theory, Outdoor education and Outdoor School
Holding the Space: Supporting Our Children’s Innate Sense of Wonder
By David Strich, M.Ed.
“If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in.”
— Rachel Carson, The Sense of Wonder (1965)
When the boys were exploring the side of the creek last week, I couldn’t help but think of Rachel Carson and her words of wisdom. I watched as my twelve nine-year old mentees took to Whatcom Creek like it was their birthright. The next thing I knew, I was diving off a rock with seven boys into the refreshing water. Three others used dip nets to catch water striders while another mentor was showing them the three crawdads he caught. The last two were running along the banks in their own little worlds, ducking under tree limbs and splashing along the edges.
The work I’ve done as a nature connection mentor for the Boys Explorers Club program of Wild Whatcom has changed my approach to environmental education and to being a teacher. Over the past two years I have moved from an objective-based model to simply being a supportive guide. I still have goals for my participants and I still assess their learning, but I have come to realize that it is not my instruction that teaches them.
My role is to simply hold the space for them to learn on their own. Their first-hand experiences in our local Bellingham city and Whatcom County parks develop unique relationships with the watersheds, amphibians, trees, birds, and plants. And it is THOSE natural elements that are their teachers.
Recently Explorers’ curiosity led them to inquire about Indian Pipe (Monotropa uniflora) growing on the forest floor. They wondered if it was a plant because it isn’t even green. I started to pontificate about rhizomal relationships with conifers, habitat considerations, and that the plant has been used as medicine. But the boys will undoubtedly remember this ghostly plant more because it is said that Indian Pipe grows where wolves have urinated. That made them laugh.
Later in the week, when an Explorer accidentally broke open a clam shell while digging in the mud, he learned about shellfish biology and how delicate those animals are. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, he practiced compassion for another living being and the skill of forgiving himself for hurting that creature. He might have learned about clam biology if we had dissected some using a scientific investigatory approach that I prepared for them. However, he’d have missed a chance for vital interpersonal growth that came from his own exploration and experience.
So I have to let go of my objectives to teach the boys about plants because I never know what will spark their interest as we wander through the forest together. I can share knowledge from my adult perspective and perhaps nuggets of information will root into their heads so they can recall it later. But by just being there alongside them, as Rachel Carson encourages, l am rediscovering the mystery with them, fostering their sense of wonder and ability to learn on their own.
———
Our afterschool program called Neighborhood Nature is another opportunity for students to get outside with adult companions, as boys and girls explore natural areas near their schools. One second grade girl’s words speak clearly to the importance of this work. When we walked to the nearby park one Monday afternoon she told me, “I’m bored.” After a day of stimulation in school her nervous system was very amped up. She was ready for the next entertainment or thing to do. When she said it again, I replied, “Good.”
“No, I am not supposed to be bored,” she said, implying that as an adult it was up to me to make sure she had something to do. I just smiled and told her that I thought it was good that she was bored. She dismissed me with a huff and then sat down in the dirt. And there the magic happened.
In previous years I would have given her a task and helped her to accomplish it, having some objectives for her growth in my head. It would have been a contrived way for me to teach her something that she may or may not have wanted to learn. Instead, I observed her physical response to boredom and the subsequent transformation.
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She sat down in the dirt and then her nervous system slowed down. Naturally her hands fidgeted with the dirt. Soon she looked up to see another girl digging a hole in the ground near her. She watched for a moment and then asked to join in digging a tunnel and then creating a burrow and home for an unknown animal. The girls connected and laughed together while playing in the dirt. They too practiced compassion in making a home for another living being in the forest, one they hadn’t even seen. They practiced intrapersonal skills and learned how to work well with one another.
Had I gone into my previous teacher mode and tasked her with something to do, then this authentic learning would have been lost. Once her body slowed down and her amped-up nervous system relaxed, her curiosity took over and her social tendencies took over. This girl had to be “bored” and I had to let it happen. As a supportive guide the best course of action for me was to deliberately take no action. When it was time to head back to school to meet the parents, it was all I could do to cajole her into leaving so the groups wouldn’t be more than 10 minutes late.
This is a reminder to all of us that we have to let go of the adult agenda in education. Our children know how to learn; they simply need the space to do so. They need us to let them be bored so their curiosity can show up. And it is us who ought to be present and engaged with their curiosity. We may have scientific and logical answers to teach and share but we may have forgotten the mystery that our children are exploring for the first time.
Like Carson says, a child needs an adult with whom to share and discover the joys and mystery of this world. But we adults should recognize that we need the children to remind us of the magic and mystery in our natural world. We have to be OK with slowing down, being bored and being present with our children so we can rediscover what we learned as children.
David Strich is the Program Coordinator for the Boys Explorers Club program of Wild Whatcom. He lives in Bellingham, Washington with his wife and can be reached at d.strich@gmail.com
