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Wildsight’s Classroom With Outdoors begins across the Basin
Field trip program gets students in touch with their environment
Wildsight’s award-winning environmental education program, Classroom With Outdoors, is back!
Now in its 13th year, Classroom With Outdoors is an experiential, field trip-based program designed to connect students in grades 4 to 7 with the ecosystems in their own back yards.
Wildsight is able to offer Classroom With Outdoors free of charge thanks to the generous support of Columbia Basin Trust and local foundations and sponsors – which is vital to ensuring that the program remains accessible to as many students as possible.
The program continues to be as popular as ever – this year, roughly 1,750 students in communities across the Columbia Basin will participate. Wildsight’s exceptional team of environmental educators has already started helping students and teachers discover the wonders of forest, wetland, grassland, and old growth ecosystems through engaging, interactive activities – using fine nets to catch and observe insects, journaling, role-playing, and much more.
‘There’s an increased recognition of the value of learning outside the classroom,’ says Education Program Manager Monica Nissen. ‘And we are starting to see the importance of understanding what is going on in the places where we live, of having a sense of local context and appreciating the ways in which intact ecosystems sustain us.’
Classroom With Outdoors draws rave reviews from teachers each year.
‘Our programs are curriculum-based, so they support the learning that’s already happening inside the classroom,’ says Nissen. ‘Teachers tell us that they really appreciate being able to meet curriculum requirements by going outside.
They often liken participating in Classroom With Outdoors to walking through a science textbook – it brings core concepts home for the students, making them memorable and compelling.’
Classroom With Outdoors is made possible through the financial assistance of Columbia Basin Trust, The North Face Explore Fund, Columbia Power Corporation, Fortis BC, Teck Coal, Teck Trail Operations, the Osprey Foundation, Creston-Kootenay Foundation, and the BC Gaming Fund.
Wildsight views environmental education as a crucial part of building healthy communities and maintaining thriving ecosystems.
‘Ecosystem services are starting to be incorporated into economics and value systems,’ says Nissen. ‘Classroom With Outdoors helps to teach these concepts.
One popular activity that we use involves having the students pretend that they are scientists from another planet who have come to Earth to observe life here. Every time we do this, the students conclude that Earthlings are really lucky to have such an amazing planet to live on. It’s a good lens to see things through.’
Wildsight
