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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.


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  • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Friday October 28 2016, @08:54PM

    by darkfeline (1030) on Friday October 28 2016, @08:54PM (#419955) Homepage

    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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