term-away programs: The Island School, The Mountain School, Maine Coast
Semester, Rocky Mountain Semester, The Outdoor Academy of the Southern
Appalachians, the Woolman Semester; links to all these at
http://www.independenteducator.org/viewlinks.php?catID=1&groupID=5&subcatID=191&sort=reg&display=all
Additionally, many independent schools in rural-ish areas make use of
their settings to this end. The Conserve School (WI) is a fairly new
institution that does this with a very intentional and green philosophy,
but one can leaf through a Porter Sargent or Peterson to find many more
schools that integrate some aspects of "outdoor" education into their
philosophies and programs.
And then there's the Walden Project in Vermont; article at
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/02/thoreau_inspires_classroom_in_the_woods.php
with a link to a very entertaining NPR piece.
Some years ago I read THE LAST CHILD IN THE WOODS and was inspired; a
while later it occurred to me that the other large chunk of the natural
world for kids to explore is made of water. A short monograph (THE WATERY
REALM; sorry for the shameless self-promotion here, but try The WoodenBoat
Store) followed that realization, but there are schools--Tabor and
Landmark in my region, in particular--that focus on the sea, broadly
defined, as part of their educational programming. There are also various
"sea semester" programs, many aimed at older students, but canoe-tripping
camps, sail training programs, and the like abound as summer programs,
although it's sort of a shame that we thus equate "nature" with "vacation"
rather than as an integral aspect of life. (This attitude goes back to the
days Theodore Roosevelt, when summer camps first began to proliferate and
national parks became vacatuion destinations.)
Hope this is useful--Peter Gow
Peter Gow, Director of College Counseling and Special Programs
Beaver Country Day School
791 Hammond Street
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
www.bcdschool.org
Tel. 617-738-2755
FAX 617-738-2701
Webmaster: www.IndependentEducator.org
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