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: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 28 2016, @01:11AM
That's an interesting take. I see those skills, with the exception of the singing, as survival skills. Wood burning, which I take to mean fire-building, is about the most important survival skill after finding water. Basket weaving and pottery, to which I'd add flint knapping, are about using the materials around you to create the tools you need to survive. The ancillary benefit for kids that live in the city and who will never need to survive in the woods is that they learn how to create things with their own hands instead of running down to Walmart to buy another Made-in-China trinket. I grew up in the Rockies and now live in Brooklyn; I appreciate the city for what it has to offer but am often amazed at the universal, learned helplessness of my city-born and -raised neighbors.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Friday October 28 2016, @02:27AM
Unfortunately by wood burning I meant using a device much like a soldering iron to burn letters into wood. I agree that ceremics, firemaking, survival, even weaving are desirable to learn to some extent, but I do not want my kids doing a half hour a day course in each for three months.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam