EE News and Events
With support from the Gray Fam- ily Foundation, the outdoor classrooms program is growing and today serves more than 600 students at every school in the county. Field trips include water quality monitoring, salmon viewing, planting trees, removing invasive weeds and otherwise caring for natural areas. Through the popular Adopt-a-Stream
Students adopt local streams and create new outdoor classrooms where learning thrives
A beautiful creek runs right next to Riley
Creek Elementary in Gold Beach, but none of the students even knew it was there. “It was completely covered with blackberries,” says Statia Ryder, Watershed Education Coordinator for the Curry Water- sheds Partnership. “You couldn’t see it. You couldn’t get to it.”
That’s when the students got involved. Middle schoolers cleared blackberries, removed trash and planted trees. The county donated gravel, and students laid a trail and built stairs. The result was a new outdoor classroom safe enough for even the younger students to access, too. In addition to Riley Creek, the Curry
County Watersheds Partnership has more than a dozen outdoor classroom sites scattered among the 10 major watersheds of Curry County, Oregon’s “Wild River Coast.” In a county where many students are on free or reduced lunch, and there is currently no outdoor school offered, the Curry County Watershed Partnership is fill- ing an important need.
program, middle school classes maintain their own streamside site, such as Riley Creek. “Each school has their own specific area they take care of,” Statia says. “In the past 10 years, the kids have planted more than 10,000 trees.”
While the kids get their hands dirty, the teachable moments abound.
—from the Gray Family Foundation website
Outdoor School for All In November 2016, Oregon voters
resoundingly approved Measure 99, which dedicates $22 million in lottery funds each year to make Outdoor School accessible to every fifth- or sixth-grader in the state, regardless of their background or zip code. As a primary backer of the ballot measure, the Gray Family Foundation worked with partners in the Oregon Outdoor Education Coalition to bring this effort to the finish line.
Statewide Outdoor School will be a critical opportunity to demonstrate best practices outlined by the Oregon Envi- ronmental Literacy Program (OELP), our nation-leading roadmap toward statewide alignment around environmental literacy. OELP is administered by Oregon State Uni- versity Extension, which will also distribute Measure 99 funding to schools and districts beginning with the 2017-2018 school year.
Many campuses in Washington carry out longitudinal studies about sites on campus or
nearby. Here, Pacific Lutheran University students investigate Clover Creek, a small lowland Puget Sound watershed. For the past 25 years, a multi-disciplinary team of faculty has shaped “Environmental Methods of Investigation” as a field course that integrates scientific analyses with social and political issues and often the humanities as well. Photo: Pacific Lutheran University.
Currently only half of Oregon students attend Outdoor School. The Gray Family Foundation is committed to supporting our state’s deep network of educators, schools and camps as new programs emerge across the state. The future is bright for coming generations of Oregon students who, rooted in this common experience, will have the opportunity to immerse themselves in nature and together learn to care for their place and community over a lifetime.
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www.clearingmagazine.org
CLEARING Spring 2018
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