I am a life-long participant in ourdoor education, from the Youth Science Institute, then in San Jose, my first job, to camps and others forms of being out of doors--I benefited a lot!  My first teaching job was as an ES Specialist on the coast of Oregon, Grades K-6, that had a wonderful integrated science, math, language arts, and art model for teaching science.  It also used a project/product basis for units, one was a day-long field for all the 4th, 5th graders in the dictrict, and two trips for the 6th graders. And while we coordinated these trips, the 'teachers' were well-prepared HS stundents--in fact almost 80% of the 10-12 graders participated. After North Bay in North Bend, I worked for 21 years at Oregon State with the SMILE Program, first as the Elem Club coordinator, then ES/MS, and then Program and Evalaution coodinator, and retired as the director of the SMILE Program, a statewide afterschool science program for under-represented rural youth, grades 4-12. We used rich contexual activities to engage youth, the majority that used a community/environental science model.  We has numerous partnerships that brought in current topics, real issues, and many practitioner role models--one such was with NOAA's CIOSS and ocean sciences. The goal was increasing the number and preparation of the students so that they graduated from HS ready for college.

Now retired, I work with WREN in the West Eugene critical wetland and oak habiats, to share how these ecosystems are central in defining a healthy community.  Content in a Community Context