Why Learn Outdoors?

“Turn the classroom out-of-doors, put the students into motion and force both the students and teachers to come to grips with the healing power of direct experience.”
-Kurt Hahn, Founder of Outward Bound

Even in its best light, most evaluators see American education as too passive and non-participatory. By and large, most school children continue to be confined to the classroom and learn through lectures…The National Science Foundation has pointed to environmental education and science as serving an important role in integrating disparate subject matter in ways students can both understand and apply. Isolated disciplines presented in a more confined classroom setting have documented weaknesses. Integration requires new thinking and a challenge to educational delivery. The NSF values environment-based education for the positive effect it can have on learning…and [its] impact on student performance in the following areas:

• impacts on science learning
• improvements in integrated learning
• improved language arts and reading
• improved thinking and motivation
• equalizing of academic progress across groups
• improved student attitudes and behavior

-from Kevin Cole’s (2005) Environmental Literacy in America, The National Environmental Education and Training Foundation

Eco-centered Adventure Based Learning is the idea that human beings learn better when actively engaged in the natural world. An experience could be as simple as watching an ant carrying crumbs up a log or as intense as paddling a raft through a turbulent rapid. Humans learn well in natural settings because our senses are sharpened, our minds are present and the consequences of our actions are real. Learn Outdoors embraces this approach to learning and offers participants opportunities for challenge, exploration and discovery. All Eco-Centered Adventure Based Learning Experiences involve programs that…

• … embrace and promote interconnection and humans’ need for direct engagement in the natural world
• …believe deeply in the cultivation and continual development of natural and human relationships.
• … use outdoor recreation and adventure pursuits as a vehicle for learning, growth and empowerment
• …work to limit their impact on the environments they experience and strive to serve and protect all elements of the natural world.
• … involve challenge and risk, call for the acquisition of new skills and practiced competence and necessitate the use of effective communication and problem solving strategies.
• …stress that collective participation is vital to the success of the entire team and that individuals need to commit equally to ideas of group excellence and achievement.
• …balance group living, travel and challenge with the need for individual risk taking, exploration and reflection.
• …employ dynamic, inspirational educators and professionally certified staff to run experiential classroom and field based programming.

Our Attention to Detail

We customize every trip and program we run. Groups large and small can choose from our various course areas, excellent adventure and activity choices and delight in the variety of our menu, snacking and logistics options. We can be as comfortable or go as minimal as our customers desire. Our course dates and durations are flexible allowing our customers to schedule the exact time they want with us, months in advance. When reserving their trips, we work diligently to listen to our client’s needs and desired objectives. These goals and learning outcomes will be clearly articulated to our staff and it is their job to see that attention is paid to every detail. Due to our strong focus on customer satisfaction, safety and success, it’s no wonder that Learn Outdoors clients and school programs return to adventure with us year after year.