Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by cmn32480 on Thursday October 27 2016, @06:06PM   Printer-friendly
from the no-video-games-out-there dept.

Each year, thousands of Oregon parents hug their kids goodbye and send them tramping into the wilderness for up to a week to learn about their state's natural wonders.

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.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 28 2016, @01:11AM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday October 28 2016, @01:11AM (#419675) Journal

    I honestly do not want my kids wasting time doing wood burning, basket weaving, pottery, and singing when they could be doing educational electives. I wouldn't mind a few here and there, definitely would not mine a survival course, but I really doubt these would happen.

    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.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Interesting=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 2) by Sulla on Friday October 28 2016, @02:27AM

    by Sulla (5173) on Friday October 28 2016, @02:27AM (#419695) Journal

    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