Join us as we start the 2024 Outdoor School Gathering where we will hear from our three hosting partners on the importance of Outdoor School, the Gathering, and working together. We'll get a look at what we've learned from our evaluations and where there are areas of growth, and finally get to know one another through a quick ice breaker activity.

Speakers

• Spirit Brooks, Oregon State University, Director, OSU Extension Outdoor School Program
• Nancy Bales, Gray Family Foundation, Executive Director
• Kim Silva, Friends of Outdoor School, Executive Director
• Steven Braun, eeRISE

In these sessions, we will explore tools and practice to support communication and de-escalation skills. These practical tools can support, develop, and deepen relationships and learning. They can be used with colleagues, staff, students, community members, and anybody you work with. These tools can support and clarify people’s needs and values while discovering a shared starting point.

Speakers

• Veronica Banuelos, Veronica Banuelos Consulting LLC, Principal Consultant / Founder

How do we define a culture of feedback and what are some of the ways we cultivate this at Outdoor School? In this session, we discuss and explore the Radical Candor model and how it applies to our work at Outdoor School, including asking for and offering concrete, actionable feedback; conducting 1:1 meetings to promote professional growth for your staff; working with student leaders and more. We will share ideas and resources to support a culture of feedback.

Speakers

• Stacey Perry, Rogue Environmental Education and Outdoor School, Lead Instructor/Coordinator

In a time with low unemployment and high expectations from job seekers, nailing your hiring process is as important as ever. 

During this session, you'll learn how to elevate every step of your hiring process:  hiring committees, job postings/position descriptions, interviews, references, offers, and even rejections. Opal Creek's equitable hiring practices have resulted in large and diverse applicant pools. For the betterment of employment and retention in the outdoor school field as a whole, we're excited to share these practices with you.

We'll end with a pitch to all outdoor providers that the biggest change we can make is in job design - moving away from temporary positions and toward permanent ones - with tangible ideas for how to accomplish that together.

Session presentation: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1z5S-4AdWEqQE7cEc0ASAOUQYptazjV9wF6rUMTA9JXI/edit#slide=id.g2b26460f649_0_35 

Speakers

• Megan Selvig, Opal Creek Ancient Forest Center, Programs Director

How can your Outdoor School program utilize staff and teacher resources to support the inclusion of students with special needs (behavioral/medical)? What are the strategies for inclusion? What are the skills and strategies to fully include students with specific needs? How might the communication with families work to support their engagement with Outdoor School programs? What are ways that we can increase comfort with the experience and or work collaboratively with families to identify and work through various barriers to participation? Leveraging school staff to support students while at the site in order to encourage participation.

Speakers

• Tom Eby, MESD Outdoor School, Outdoor School Lead Nurse
• Miranda Gonzales, MESD Outdoor School, Community Engagement Specialist.
• Kitty Boryer, Multnomah ESD Outdoor School, Student Services Specialist

Did you know that the Oregon Department of Education recently adopted new Transformative SEL standards and that school districts will be required to implement them starting in the 2024-2025 school year? Join us at this session to explore the new standards, learn about how the standards are rolling out in school districts, and contribute your thoughts to outdoor school-specific guidance and supports related to the new standards.

Speakers

• Kristi Backe, Oregon State University, Curriculum and Professional Development Coordinator

In this session, we will explore addressing a collective conflict, whether internal or external to your organization. We will explore and analyze the weight of unspoken needs and/or challenges in group dynamics. And the importance of including any resistance as part of our work.

Speakers

• Veronica Banuelos, Veronica Banuelos Consulting LLC, Principal Consultant / Founder

The flexibility of willow. The problem-solving powers of dandelion. The generosity of cedar. Plant teachings can help grow social-emotional skills in both educators and students while nurturing deeper connections to the earth. Attendees will learn from one school’s experience and engage with specific plant teachers to practice applying their teachings. Presenters will share how we have brought plant teachings into The Cottonwood School, a public K-8 charter school, in partnership with the non-profit organization GRuB. We will describe the origins of our partnership and outline our efforts to better fuse place-based education with health and wellness. This overview will include an explanation of how this work respectfully honors cultural traditional knowledge (specifically from Coast Salish peoples), and offers examples of how Cottonwood has brought plant-teachings into the school curriculum. Participants will have an opportunity to engage with plant teachings, enter into conversation about honoring cultural property rights, and ask questions.

Speakers

• Sarah Anderson, The Cottonwood School of Civics and Science, Place-based Education Consultant
• Kristin Krem, cottonwood
• Kim Gaffi, community-based organization, Environmental educator and Tend, Gather and Grow curriculum development team member
• Emma Johnson, Portland State University/Garden Raised Bounty (GRuB), Senior Instructor 1

In the first part of this session, Cherie Clark from the Willamette Education Service District will give an overview of the Oregon Employability Skills Curriculum, a free and open-source career and life skills curriculum developed in partnership with Oregon industry leaders and the Oregon Department of Education. She will demonstrate how the curriculum resources are organized, and explore how it is a flexible and affordable resource for programs looking to add to their student leader training program.

In the second part of the session, Elliot Drake-Maurer, the High School Coordinator at OSU Outdoor School, will lead a discussion to explore one of the curriculum's trait modules with the participants and have them reflect on how it could be applied in the context of training and leading HSLs during an outdoor school session. At the end of the session, we will invite programs that are interested in participating in a pilot program to join us in developing, implementing, and evaluating one of these OES Traits during the Spring 2023-2024 ODS Season.

Speakers

• Elliot Drake-Maurer
• Cherie Clark

This session will shine light on the insights on how the Latinx community differs from other communities when it concerns outdoor programming. Primarily, the session will explore different avenues for Outdoor School partners to outreach to and effectively serve the Latinx community in outdoor school programs. We will have time and space for collaborative brainstorming and processing ideas, barriers, and action items as they concern outreaching, recruiting, and supporting Latinx students in Outdoor School.

Speakers

• Wesley Self, Vamonos Outside, Program Coordinator

This interactive panel discussion will feature representation from people with visible and invisible disabilities, as well as advice from special education specialists. The panelists will share personal stories, as well as concrete advice on how to make the ODS experience inclusive and accessible.

Speakers

• Geoff Babb, The Onward Project, Founder
• Steven Braun, eeRISE

This session has two presentations:

• High School Counselors, a key to success
  • As important as content, activities, and even camp location are for the camp experience, high school counselors can be the determining factor for how well students enjoy outdoor school. This session aims to share ideas gathered from various schools over several years of attending camp to help improve outdoor school for our students.
• High School Volunteer Recruiting: Findings and Strategies
  • Historical Statistics, Strategies, and more about High School recruiting!

Subsessions

High School Counselors, a key to success

Description

As important as content, activities, and even camp location are for the camp experience, high school counselors can be the determining factor for how well students enjoy outdoor school. The aim of this session is to share ideas gathered from various schools over the course of several years of attending camp to help improve outdoor school for our students.

Speaker

• • Matt Salisbury, Carus Elementary School

High School Volunteer Recruiting: Findings and Strategies

Description

Historical Statistics, Strategies, and more about High School recruiting!

Speaker

• • Morgo Yon, Camp Tamarack, Site Supervisor

Inl this hands-on session we will discuss and demonstrate how the AdvenChair can be used at Outdoor Schooll. 

Speakers

• Geoff Babb, The Onward Project, Founder

Northwest Outdoor Science School implemented a new Inquiry-based curriculum in the fall of 2023. We are excited to share our lessons learned with other programs as we all work to make Outdoor School more student centered, place-based, and inclusive.

Speakers

• Lauriel Amoroso, Northwest Outdoor Science School (NWRESD), Curriculum & Training Specialist

This session will shine light on the insights on how the Latinx community differs from other communities when it concerns outdoor programming. Primarily, the session will explore different avenues for Outdoor School partners to outreach to and effectively serve the Latinx community in outdoor school programs.We will have time and space for collaborative brainstorming and processing ideas, barriers, and action items as they concern outreaching, recruiting, and supporting Latinx students in Outdoor School.

Speakers

• Wesley Self, Vamonos Outside, Program Coordinator

In this session, we will explore how to identify and manage risk at outdoor school programs with our presenter from Viristar, the risk management company that is contracted with OSU to do risk management analysis. The presentation will focus on keeping everyone safe and reducing risk exposure for organizations. 

Speakers

• Annie Linhart, Viristar, Operations and Outreach Manager

Need new curriculum ideas? Wondering how to incorporate volunteers into ODS? Developing a new evaluation and assessment plan? Check out the Resource Fair!  At this evening event, representatives from OSU, Friends of Outdoor School, ONREP, OFRI, and other organizations will be available to meet with Gathering attendees to share ideas and resources related to Outdoor School. 

Speakers

• Veronica Banuelos, Veronica Banuelos Consulting LLC, Principal Consultant / Founder

Subsessions

• Coast to Forest Mental Health Resources
• Freshwaters Illustrated
• Friends of Outdoor School Table
• Introduction to NEW Volunteer Instructor Toolkit
• Oregon Natural Resources Education Program
• Using Self-Evaluation Tools to Make Outdoor School More Equitable

Join us for a casual evening program as we screen various videos and film shorts that highlight and support outdoor school programs in Oregon. There will be discussion breaks to consider different ways that videos are used to tell stories about outdoor school.  

Freshwaters Illustrated Resources

Speakers

• Kristi Backe, Oregon State University, Curriculum and Professional Development Coordinator
• Benno Lyon, Oregon State University, Regional Coordinator