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The Outdoor School program was groundbreaking when it started more than a half-century ago. Since then, more than 1 million children have enjoyed—or endured—this rite of passage at campsites scattered from Oregon's stormy coast to its towering evergreen forests to its rugged high desert.
At the program's heyday, 90 percent of sixth-graders spent the week testing water samples, studying fungi and digging through topsoil. Today, just half of Oregon's 11- and 12-year-olds take part, mostly through a patchwork of grants, fundraising, parent fees and charitable donations. Caps on property taxes, plus the recent recession, have forced many school districts to scrap the program or whittle it down to just a few days.
Now, backers of a statewide ballot measure want to use a slice of lottery proceeds to guarantee a week of Outdoor School for all children. If it passes, the measure would make Oregon the only state with dedicated funding for outdoor education, including students in charter, private and home schools, said Sarah Bodor, policy director for the North American Association for Environmental Education.
It's more biology camp than Outward Bound.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 28 2016, @01:02AM
On the other hand, the chance of winning the lottery when you buy one ticket is far greater than the chance when you buy none.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Friday October 28 2016, @05:02PM
Not really. I think you are greatly overestimating your chances of winning the lottery (which is how the lottery traps even moderately educated people).
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(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 28 2016, @07:41PM
Not overestimating at all, but it's a choice between zero chance and a very tiny chance the universe could throw you a bone.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Friday October 28 2016, @08:54PM
There are ways to win the lottery without explicitly buying a lottery ticket, for example finding one on the ground.
It's a choice between functionally zero chance and functionally zero chance. You can consider winning the lottery to be a glitch in the matrix for all intents and purposes.
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(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday October 30 2016, @02:42AM
On the other hand, the chance of winning the lottery when you buy one ticket is far greater than the chance when you buy none.
I have never in my life bought a lottery ticket. I have won something around $200. The following is absolutely true.
I'm talking about scratch tickets here, which are affiliated with the lottery in many states. See, there is one person in my extended family who LOVED scratch tickets. So, it became tradition in her family to give them as gifts, particularly as stocking stuffers or with a holiday card or something.
I got a few over the course of several years. First year I got them, I won maybe $10 or $20. Nothing crazy, but much more than most family members ever saw. I think it was the second or third year I received them that I scratched one off and won $50. That was a larger prize than any of the family members had seen before for these holiday scratch tickets.
So, two years later I got two more with a holiday card. I won $100 off one and $20 on the other one. The person at the lottery counter at the local gas station told me I had to go somewhere else, since they didn't pay out for tickets that high, and she had never seen a $100 winner for a scratch ticket before. (I remember looking up the odds for that game online, and just getting the $100 ticket was something like 1 in 20,000 odds for that particular game... most payouts are like $5 or $10.)
It's been several years since, and I've never won anything again. Obviously it was a statistical fluke. But it was quite a thing when I did, since nobody in the family ever saw payouts that big from scratch tickets.
Anyhow, even though what happened to me was a statistical fluke with the tickets that I never bought, I'm pretty sure it's a HECK of a lot more common to win something at a lottery without buying a ticket (even finding a scratch ticket dropped on the street) than your chances of winning a Powerball jackpot.
Of course, I'm also the guy who has never spent a dime at a casino and who won $150. I've only been to one once, at my parents' invitation -- they like the "play the slots" a few times per year. I wasn't really in the mood for just losing my money, so my dad put $50 on a card for me to play, saying he'd start me off. I went about halfway through that $50 when I hit a $250 payoff. I figured "what the heck" and played a bit more until my balance went back down to $200. I gave my dad back his $50, and never have played at a casino again.
(And no, in general I don't consider myself a "lucky" person. I've never won money or a significant prize in any other thing I've entered, usually a raffle or something. This only seems to happen when I'm betting someone else's money....)