These K-12 schools focus on environmental education and outdoor experiences to a much greater degree than most K-12 schools. I acknowledge the Orion Grassworks Network for help information used on this page.
Chadwick School, 26800 South Academy Dr, Palos Verdes Penninsula CA 90274: Chadwick outdoor education seeks to impel students into wilderness adventures, developing powerful and stimulating learning environments where challenges are created and overcome, and forming well-bonded communities where students can discover a sense of self, come to understand their community and explore the natural world.
Chapman Ranch School, PO Box 427, Mt Baldy CA 91759:The Chapman Ranch School, a nonprofit mountain school in the San Gabriel Mountains, integrates the arts and sciences with the natural environment to help children realize that they are part of a whole physical and social community. All activities at the Ranch are hands-on, stressing the understanding of our personal and environmental interdependency. These activities are oriented toward hard work, a sense of the student's own worth, and his/her relationship with the cycles of nature. They strive to reinforce each individual's responsibility in caring for the environment. Since 1980, the Ranch School (located on forty acres of chaparral, riparian forest, pond, oak woodland, and evergreen forest) has offered a number of programs to public schools. Teacher preparation and participation through staff development in service has been an important component of the program. Pre-Ranch activities and follow-up, led by the teacher in the classroom, help students fully experience the diverse activities the Ranch has to offer. The program's hope is to help empower visiting teachers and schools to initiate changes in their urban school sites and include gardens and natural areas.
Dunn Middle School, Los Olivos: A small independent school which provides a week fall trip and graduation experience in natural environments for all its students.
Nueva School, Hillsborough: Located in the San Francisco Bay Area, The Nueva School is a child-centered, PreK-8 progressive school for gifted and talented children emphasizing integrated studies, creative arts and social-emotional learning. Nueva's vision is to create a dynamic educational model where gifted and talented children learn to make choices that benefit the world. Our mission: Our school community inspires passion for lifelong learning, fosters social and emotional acuity and develops the imaginative mind.
Oxbow School, Napa: The Oxbow School is a one-semester fine arts program for high school juniors from public and independent schools nation-wide. The School offers forty-eight students a unique educational experience focused on the in-depth study and practice of the visual arts. Other semester programs such as the Mountain School, focusing on community and sustainable agriculture; CITYterm, emphasizing urban studies; the Rocky Mountain Semester, addressing outdoor education and alpine ecology; and the Island School, exploring aqua-culture and marine biology, have created rich opportunities for student learning that extend traditional high school course offerings.
Rosa Parks Environmental Science School, 920 Allston Way, Berkeley CA 94704: It is difficult for a visitor not to be distracted by the charm of Rosa Parks's campus. Built in the form of a child-friendly village, the school is comprised of small, colorful buildings surrounding a central play yard. The multi-purpose center stands to one side, overlooking the newly-landscaped playing field. The center is home to the Bayer Children's Science Center, the hub of the school's magnet environmental science theme. "This is a perfect location for what our students are learning," says Principal Rebecca Wheat. "Bayer is two blocks away, the Marina not much further, not to mention the gardening and recycling centers, whose staffs are so willing to teach us about what they do. Our neighbors have been very, very generous with their time and financial support. Part of the excitement of this program is the partnerships we have formed with this scientific community."
Thacher School, Ojai: All Thacher students, mountain-types who have camped all their lives and city-slickers who have never even thought about finding their way in the woods, take camping trips, called "Extra Day Trips", for a week in the fall and again in the spring. Nearly every weekend a group of students goes camping, as well. Many traditional camping trips are still taken on horseback in the Los Padres National Forest, as well as backpacking, rock climbing, and kayaking trips in such wild and woolly places as the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and the Mojave Desert. All trips stress 'minimum impact' camping skills as well as self-sufficiency and cooperation.
National
CO Crested Butte Academy, Crested Butte CO: Crested Butte Academy is a coeducational, independent, college-preparatory boarding and day school committed to educating the whole person. The Academy is dedicated to small classes, close cooperation among faculty, staff, and students in all areas of school life, and a strong relationship with our mountain community. The school offers a rigorous core curriculum, a strong program in leadership and ethics, and a wide range of outstanding enrichment courses. In athletics, the Academy provides world-class coaching in competitive mountain sports, as well as a comprehensive outdoor education curriculum. The school's goal is to graduate students who are prepared to pursue higher education, to lead fulfilling personal lives, and to participate in a democratic society.
CO Eagle Rock School, Estes Park CO: This year-round, tuition-free, residential high school provides personalized learning experiences for up to ninety-six 15- to 18-year-old students from diverse backgrounds across America who have not been successful in conventional school settings. Students choose to attend Eagle Rock. Each candidate for admission, nominated through a participating school district or community organization must have strong support from an adult sponsor. The innovative curriculum draws extensively from the school's challenging mountain setting. Environmentalism and outdoor education are combined with active learning and community service in a unique residential setting. After one to three years in residence, students earn a high school diploma and move on to college or entry-level employment.
CO The Logan School for Creative Learning, Denver CO: An integral part of The Logan School's philosophy is a commitment to experiential learning. As they become more involved with the world around them, students are better able to integrate, retain and manipulate information. Logan supports experiential learning through its Local Field Trip and Environmental Education Programs.
Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound: Expeditionary Learning is a design for school reform that challenges K-12 students to meet rigorous academic and character standards. Through professional development and technical assistance, we collaborate with the entire school staff to make schools safe, engaging communities where all students are expected to achieve more than they thought possible. Expeditionary Learning extends the experience of Outward Bound, an adventure and service-based education program founded by educator Kurt Hahn, into public school. Just as on wilderness courses, students in Expeditionary Learning schools learn to work together in teams, rise to seemingly impossible challenges, and use their knowledge in service to the community. (Note: This is a program adopted by schools, not a school.)
MD Fairhaven School, Marlsboro MD: At Fairhaven School in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, students ranging in age from 5 to 19 initiate and direct their own learning within a nurturing, democratic community. Fairhaven students are free to devote their childhood years to satisfying their boundless curiosity, communicating honestly and fearlessly, exploring the world, and growing up to be committed, compassionate, self-motivated adults. Located 25 minutes east of Washington D.C., Fairhaven is set on a 12 acre campus of mature woodland and fields bordered on two sides by a stream. The school's solar powered, timber-frame building has the rustic feel of a mountain lodge, and was built in 1997 from the ground up, using many recycled materials, by the Fairhaven community of parents, students and staff, aided by a host of volunteers. Fairhaven students are not bound by walls, bells, and textbooks. Each person’s day is unique; students have space and time to explore the woods and water, to talk, to learn through play, to dream and to discover and pursue what they really care about. Fairhaven School is a member of a network of more than 20 Sudbury schools around the world, based on the educational philosophy of the Sudbury Valley School, founded in Framingham, MA in 1968.
TX Houston Outdoor Learning Academy (HOLA), Houston TX: The Houston Outdoor Learning Academy, or HOLA, seeks to immerse students in challenging adventure-based, outdoor opportunities created to specifically correlate with academic curriculums, encourage curiosity, develop problem-solving ability, and build self-confidence, thereby increasing knowledge, motivation, strength, and responsibility for one's own learning. Typical Activities include: hiking, backpacking, rock climbing, camping, extensive travel inside and outside the U.S., SCUBA and snorkeling, mountain biking, fishing, nature studies, community service, sailing, canoeing and kayaking, surfing, skateboarding, and a multitude of other experiential type activities.
VA The Hill School, Middleburg VA: The Hill School is an independent primary school (K - 8) founded in 1926 and located in Middleburg, Va. The goal of a Hill School education is to build character, self confidence, and scholarship through academic and co-curricular excellence, individualized attention, and a strong sense of community. Community is cultivated through active exploration of the relationships among human heritage, human culture, and regional ecology. The school's 137-acre campus features rolling meadows, streams, ponds, wetlands, a small woodland, and a growing arboretum.
TN New Horizon Montessori School, 913 E Cumberland Dr, Louisville TN 37777, 865-970-4322: New Horizon Montessori School is dedicated to helping students become responsible members of the world community. This requires that they develop respect for themselves, humanity as a whole, and the environment in which they live. This education begins at the formative preschool age and continues at New Horizon through the elementary years. It is achieved in part by having students become personally involved in directing their learning through concrete experiences with materials designed to help them develop concepts. In addition to the academic aspect of the learning environment, students are responsible for creating a rule structure and monitoring its effectiveness, thus becoming experienced in how societies of individuals function. New Horizon also serves as a training location for adults wanting to learn more about the Montessori Method of education.
NC The Outdoor Academy of the Eagles Nest Foundation, Pisgah Forest, NC: The Outdoor Academy is an academic semester school for 10th graders. Arising from 70 years of experiential education at Eagle's Nest, we combine a college preparatory curriculum with an outdoor program, environmental education, regional studies, and the arts. Similar to a college semester abroad, The Outdoor Academy enrolls up to 32 students during the fall and spring semesters. In this close-knit community students and faculty develop a sense of responsibility. Here everyone pitches in to make our work rewarding, our studies challenging, and our friendships real.
WA The Overlake School, Redmond WA: The Overlake School Outdoor Education Program was born under the philosophy that students learn and grow in an outdoor environment. Our trips emphasize cooperation, perseverance, concentration, judgment, and leadership by creating an experience in which the wilderness and the activities involved challenge the students to address these traits.
VT Pine Ridge School, Williston VT: Pine Ridge School is an educational community committed to assisting adolescents with learning disabilities to define and achieve success throughout their lives.
GA Rabun Gap - Nacoochee School, Rabun Gap GA: Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School's mission is to prepare students for college. We offer an intensive academic program, emphasizing the development of strong skills in reading, writing, and mathematics. Environmental stewardship is an emphasis across the curriculum.
MA Shackleton School, Ashby MA: Shackleton School is a new, expedition-based, independent, residential high school for students who learn best through experience, real-life projects, and participation in a supportive learning community.
NJ Sprout House, 200 Main St, Chatham NJ 07928, 973-635-9658: The mission of Sprout House, a primary and elementary school, is to provide a home-like setting in which happy and inquisitive children develop positive and eager attitudes toward school. The school fosters a planetary consciousness which embraces environmental beauty and preservation, as well as an awareness that all children deserve participation in societies where people can sustain themselves, live healthfully, feel stimulated, fulfilled, and happy. At Sprout House, learning starts with the "whole" and moves to the "parts" rather than the reverse. The curriculum is designed to help children realize the pleasures of learning, and to enjoy working and playing with other children and adults. A strong but unpressured emphasis is placed on science and the school provides extensive experience with objects in the environment. Children come to feel connected with nature, and to have respect for their surroundings. The concepts of scientific research are introduced as pupils develop skills in finding, using, and extending information. Literature and music are considered the art forms of language and almost "sacred" time is set aside everyday for at least one genre of literature to be enjoyed at its most basic level.
CT Suffield Outdoor Leadership Opportunities/Suffield Academy, Suffield CT: S.O.L.O. (Suffield Outdoor Leadership Opportunities) is an outdoor education program at Suffield Academy. Students may participate as an option to organized athletics. The S.O.L.O. curriculum includes canoeing, hiking, snowshoeing, rock climbing, survival skills, natural history, nature writing and drawing, wilderness medicine, and community service projects. Projects include participation in a Bluebird nesting project, maintenance of a five mile section of the Metacomet Trail, clearing a hiking trail system on school property, and helping with the annual horseshoe crab survey on Long Island Sound. S.O.L.O. also offers a two-week trip to New Mexico and Arizona in March. This trip is part of an ongoing relationship we have with the Zuni tribe. Trips are also taken to islands off the coast of Maine and two-week canoe trips in northern Maine. We are in the final stages of completing an outdoor education center which will house a 2000 sq ft indoor climbing wall, storage space, and resource/teaching space.
UT Sundance Mountain School, RR 3, Box E-6, Sundance UT 84604, 801-434-4290: The mission of the Sundance Mountain School is to create a school for the twenty-first century that fosters knowledge of and responsibility for the environment through art, science, math, literature and physical education while helping students become autonomous life-long learners. To build a foundation for the young as future citizens who will actively participate in the democratic process first in their own school, and ultimately, in their community and country.
International
Cloud Forest School, Monteverde, Costa Rica: The Cloud Forest School, locally known as the Centro de Educación Creativa, is an innovative, private, bilingual school located in the tropical cloud forest of Monteverde, Costa Rica. Founded in 1991 to increase educational opportunities for a growing population of school-age children in the area, the school offers creative, experiential instruction to 180 students with an emphasis on integrating environmental education into all facets of the curriculum.
Woodstock School, Mussoorie, India: Since 1854, Woodstock School has been providing a distinctive education for students in grades kindergarten through 12. With a spectacular setting in the Himalayas of North India, Woodstock is accessible from Delhi, has a healthy, stimulating climate, and enjoys the unique cultural blending of an historic hill station.
