Outdoor Education
Field-based Research
How to Design Field-based Research Experiences By Molly L. Sultany, msultany@nwacademy.org High School Teacher, Northwest Academy, Portland, Oregon Navigating Unchartered Waters How can educators help students feel more connected to the outdoors while engaging with...
Maybe the problem wasn’t WHAT we were learning but WHERE we were learning?
At-risk students are exposed to their local environment to gain an appreciation for their community, developing environmental awareness built on knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors applied through actions. Lindsay Casper and Brant G. Miller University of Idaho...
Bird by Bird We Come to Know the Earth
by Emma Belanger As someone who comes from a low-income background and grew up in a semi-urban environment, birds were one of the first aspects of the more-than-human world that I felt truly connected to without having to obtain expensive gear, resources, or and a way...
Asking Questions
Key Considerations for Asking Questions as a Field-Based Science Instruction By Amos Pomp Introduction We do not ask [questions] in a vacuum; what we ask, how, and when are all related. – Bang et al., 2018 How can field-based science instructors be intentional with...
Mind the Gap: How Environmental Education Can Step Forward to Address the STEM Achievement Gap
Environmental Education is a broad field encompassing nature centers, school forests, outdoor education facilities, state and national parks among others. This diversity of organization type allows for wide engagement by the public and holds great potential for...
Inside the Spring 2019 Issue
Inside the Spring 2019 issue https://clearingmagazine.org/archives/15269 https://clearingmagazine.org/archives/16855 https://clearingmagazine.org/archives/14324 https://clearingmagazine.org/archives/14370
Thoughts of an Outdoor Education “Elder”
by Daniel Kreisberg During college I was a waterfront director at a sleepaway camp and absolutely loved it. When my post college job search led me to residential outdoor education centers I was thrilled. It was summer camp all year round and it allowed me to follow my...
Bringing Nature Back to the Schoolyard
by Jane Tesner Kleiner, RLA Imagine walking out the back door of your school, surrounded by the songs of spring time birds, the soft scents of flowers in bloom, the wind billowing through nearby trees, and (if you are lucky) the croaking of Pacific tree...
Making Outdoor Education More Accessible
Effective Practices For Night Hike By: Grace Werner The mainstream outdoor industry, as it exists today, is a blanket of whiteness that ignores sacred stories, crucial histories, and traditional knowledge of black and brown people (Brown, 2019). This truth is...
Reclaiming Spaces
Providing opportunities for students of color to explore the outdoors and science careers Text and photos by Sprinavasa Brown recall the high school science teacher who doubted my capacity to succeed in advanced biology, the pre-med advisers who pointed my...
Advice for white environmentalists and nature educators
by Sprinavasa Brown I often hear White educators ask “What should I do?” expressing an earnest desire to move beyond talking about equity and inclusion to wanting action steps toward meaningful change. I will offer you my advice as a fellow educator. It is both a...
Outdoor, Hands-on STEM Learning
Outdoor Learning in Shelton: A Surge of Hope by Eleanor Steinhagen Bayshore Preserve – Shelton, WA wo 7th graders have just tossed their pears into Johns Creek and are jogging downstream to see which one will cross the finish line first. Maneuvering around a...
Outdoor Education Perspectives
Outdoor Education — Thoughts From an Elder by Dan Kriesberg uring college I was a waterfront director at a sleepaway camp and absolutely loved it. When my post college job search led me to residential outdoor education centers I was thrilled. It was summer camp...
Classroom without walls
“Mr. D., that was the best science class I’ve ever had!” The trials and successes of a classroom without walls By Greg Derbyshire he above feedback, made by a grade 8 student, is one of many similar comments made to me by students and parents who recognize and...
Wolverines, Wonder and Wilderness
Wolverines, Wonder and Wilderness Why the Wolverine Matters to a Kid Who Has Never Seen a Raccoon by Megan McGinty IT IS APRIL AND I AM SITTING UNCOMFORTABLY on the cobbles of a gravel bar on the Skagit River in the North Cascades National Park with a group of local...
Transformative Power
The Transformative Power of Wilderness Education A graduate student finds an understanding of the effect of wilderness on the development of young people’s sense of self-worth by Rory Crowley n July 7th, 2001 I lie huddled in my sleeping bag, shivering as I survey the...
Forest Schools and the Benefits of Unstructured Outdoor Play
Forest Schools and the Benefits of Unstructured Outdoor Play By Deanna Fahey Miami University, Oxford, Ohio t is snowing outside and you’re getting your child ready to go to kindergarten. While other children may be wishing for a snow day so they can play in the...
Tips for bringing students into the field: Strategies for success
Tips for bringing students into the field: Strategies for success By Joshua Klaus Director of Academic Programs, Ecology Project International (EPI) aking students into the field can provide an endless array of occasions to learn new skills, see...
In Support of Outdoor School
In Support of Outdoor School By Merrill Watrous “I not only learned about ghost shrimp and how to catch them, I did catch them. I not only learned what a chitin was and where it lived, I went out to where it was and petted it. Almost everything (at Outdoor School) was...
Students’ Lived Experience
Effective Education: Turning the Classroom Inside Out By Indira Dutt s a child at school I remember sitting in a stuffy portable looking out the window to the field and houses beyond. I felt constrained: my seat was attached to the desk, the classroom was just barely...
Race, Class, Climate Change and Outdoor Education
Race, Class, Climate Change and Outdoor Education By Jay Roberts A recent post on climate change and race (http://tinyurl.com/b6fzp7) brings up an issue that really needs to be on the forefront of outdoor and environmental education moving forward. It is becoming...
Fueling the Fire: North Cascade Institute’s Path for Youth
Fueling the Fire: North Cascade Institute's Path for Youth by Mollie Behn t is no secret that today’s youth are increasingly disconnected from nature. As a result, youth are less aware of issues and threats facing the environment and how to address them. We need to...
Seeking Environmental Maturity…
...at Starker Forests Helping students climb the ladder to responsible citizenship by Dick Powell This past summer I attended the World Forestry Center's International Educator's Institute (IEI). As an environmental educator without any formal pedagogical or...
The Return of Salmon Watch
Salmon Watch is back by popular demand and coming soon to a stream near you! . by Lizanne Saunders . his Fall ten classes of middle and high school students in the Portland metropolitan area are participating in a revitalized Salmon Watch program sponsored this pilot...
Lessons for teaching in the environment and community — 20
"Lessons for Teaching in the Environment and Community" is a regular series that explores how teachers can gain the confidence to go into the world outside of their classrooms for a substantial piece of their curricula. Part 20: Beginning at the Beginning . by Jim...
To all residential environmental educators: You are invited!
Straight Talk, Sound Ideas IslandWood is convening a conference for residential environmental educators in the Pacific Northwest! Meet new colleagues, make new connections and friends, get fresh ideas - get inspired! You can look forward to workshops, explorations and...
Going Off Trail – New Paths in Programming to Connect Children With Nature
Courtesy of recmanagement.com By Kelli Anderson Five years ago, with the addition of new management at Tamarak Nature Center in Maplewood, Minn., programming for children and their families began to take the road less traveled. It began, in effect, to go off trail....
How to Give Kids a Nature Experience to Remember
ne of my favorite nature quotations comes from the Japanese conservationist Tanaka Shozu who said, “The question of rivers is not a question of rivers, but of the human heart.” I wanted to touch the hearts of my middle school students with the beauty of nature as well...
Deepening Science Education, Increasing Ecological Literacy
Woodland Park Zoo's "Ready, Set, Discover" gets kids outside By Katie Remine, School and Community Engagement Supervisor Woodland Park Zoo “With an opportunity to wonder, explore, and to question, students can discover fresh reasons to excel at other subjects and...
Tips for bringing students into the field: Strategies for success
By Joshua Klaus, Director of Academic Programs, Ecology Project International (EPI) Taking students into the field can provide an endless array of occasions to learn new skills, see theoretical concepts enacted, make connections, and learn about the world around us. ...
A Greater Impact—What Teaching has Taught Me
by David Strich North Cascades Institute Mountain School has ended for me, but this recent spring session changed my life as an educator. I have become more convinced that I am pursuing the right career and that my teaching techniques have had meaningful impacts in my...
The Importance of Deep Experiences in Nature
By Joseph Cornell Profound moments with nature foster a true and vital understanding of our place in the world. I remember an experience I had as a five-year-old boy that awakened in me a life-long fascination for marshes, birds, and for a life lived wild and free. I...
The Social Studies of Spirituality
The Social Studies of Spirituality By Kasey Christian IslandWood (photo from silouanthompson.net) Where are the boundaries between Social Studies, Science, and Spiritual beliefs? Where do these distinct practices intersect? How does a teacher model equal respect for...
The Art of Mentoring: Rekindling Appreciation of Nature
For the questioning mind, learning never concludes because it is an endless journey with an infinite number of destinations... by Chris Helander Head Instructor Coyote's Path Wilderness School (reprinted from The Best of CLEARING) There are many people who say our...
Paying Attention: Being a Naturalist and Searching for Patterns
By Saul Weisberg Executive Director North Cascades Institute (reprinted from The Best of CLEARING) I love knowing the names of things. It makes them familiar, like old friends. I also love to look at patterns in nature. Veins on the back of a vine maple leaf. The...
Outdoor Education is Boring
by Tony Deis TrackersPDX Remember when Outdoor Education was chopping wood, ghost stories, building log cabins, lighting fires and fishing? Nowadays it's playing nature games, parroting sanitized and co-opted indigenous lore, taking water quality samples and sitting...
Coyotes’ Teachings: How to Cultivate Awareness and Natural Connections
by Lindsay Letitia Huettman I am out in the foggy, wet Pacific Northwest winter with my 10-12 year-old homeschoolers' program, heading to an amazing place we call Elk Meadows. As we cross the meadow, we stop for a word of thanksgiving about the day and send the kids...
Climate Change, Youth and Hope: Debunking the Paradox
by Megan McGinty North Cascades Institute Last year we began a service-learning summer program for high school students focusing on climate change. The Climate Challenge program consisted of a summer residency in the North Cascades followed by a service project in...
Guiding Students’ Questioning
by Jude Curtain The sun was shining. There was just a hint of fall in the September air. Twenty three fourth graders were hunched over their white dishpans, excitedly sorting through their samples of forest litter. So began a series of lessons designed to guide...
An unapologetic advocate…
by Rob Sandelin My primary goal as an educator at the Environmental Science School is to create connections between students and nature. I do this because I believe once students have a deep connection to nature, they become advocates, often for the rest of their...
Outdoor Education in the Schoolyard
by Julie Lancaster Last year, I left the OE world that I love so much and went back to school to get my teaching credential/MA Education. I felt that loving education as much as I do, it would be extremely beneficial to study it! Finding myself headed toward student...
Ear to the Ground – Saul Weisberg, North Cascades Institute
This interview is the first in a series that will be a regular feature in Clearing. Check back each month for a new interview with a leading environmental educator in the Pacific Northwest. Saul Weisberg is executive director and co-founder of North Cascades...
Review: Ten-Minute Field Trips
A Teacher's Guide to Using the Schoolgrounds for Environmental Studies Review courtesy of Fletcher Brown, University of Montana Author unknown Environmental education for children growing up in urban areas is often limited to a single trip to a forest preserve or...
Q and A: Michael Becker Talks About Hood River Middle School Outdoor Classroom
CLEARING: What have been the most difficult issues in getting this project started? Michael Becker: One of the Permaculture Design Method principles is to start small, and I highly advocate for starting with small projects that you can have initial success with....
Engaging Students in their Community: Hood River Middle School Outdoor Classroom Project
Hood River Middle School Outdoor Classroom Project The Outdoor Classroom Project is a work in progress where students are the researchers, engineers, designers, architects, builders, and users of a multidisciplinary, multi-sensory learning experience. What you see...
Review: Coyote’s Guide to Connecting with Nature
©2008 Jon Young and Wilderness Awareness School. This a book that needs to be in the possession of everyone who claims to be, or aspires to be, an outdoor educator. This book goes to the heart of developing a sense of kinship with nature and teaching about connecting...
Humane Education for a Humane World
Humane education examines the challenges facing our planet, from human oppression and animal exploitation to materialism and ecological degradation. It explores how we might live with compassion and respect for everyone. by Zoe Weil In 1987, I offered several courses...
Lasting Change: Teacher Driven Place-based Education on the Colorado Plateau
by Deanna Erickson Learning from the Land Anyone who has traveled through the Four Corners region of the Southwestern United States will remember it distinctly as a place like no other. Towns are scarce, rivers are legendary and rocks seem to bend and twist toward a...
The Green Tsunami: Environmental Education in the 21 st Century
By Mike Weilbacher The following paper was presented as the keynote address at the 2005 conference of the Association of Nature Center Administrators (ANCA) at the Chippewa Nature Center in Midland, Michigan, August 2005. Mike is a former PAEE president, newsletter...
Exploring Forest Ecology: The Northern Flying Squirrel Project
by Victoria Lewis Spawned out chinook salmon, brown , spotted and beak-nosed lie dead in the shallow water near the banks of the Salmon River in the Wildwood Recreation Area at the foot of Mount Hood. The smell of rotting fish is sharp and pervasive, but Jill...
Knowing One Big Thing: The Role of the Nature Center in the Next Millennium
Knowing One Big Thing: The Role of the Nature Center in the Next Millennium By Mike Weilbacher From The Best of Clearing, Volume V It’s a very rainy day in the middle of Aesop’s fables, and Hedgehog is stuck outside without a dry place to hide. He finds a den, but Fox...
The Birds Are Out There
by Lyanda Haupt Seattle Audubon Society Birds are everywhere. Their lives hold myriad ecological lessons, some obvious, some subtle. No matter where we live, or where we teach, there are birds to be found. They may not be wondrous, rare, or exotic. They may be an...
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