Educational consulting often involves strategy, reviews and paperwork. Unless you’re Kathryn Kurtz. In that case, it also includes chanterelles. Kristin Edlund recalls the day Kathryn visited a property in Riverview School District to identify opportunities for outdoor learning. “She was crawling through brambles and finding chanterelle mushrooms and
It’s possible to drive by a facility for years without understanding its function or role in the community. As one participant in a recent PEI workshop explained, “I’ve lived in Lewis County my whole life but never realized how the mill operates and how large-scale it is. It
The challenge isn’t convincing a handful of teachers to take students outside; it’s creating a system in which outdoor, place-based learning is an expected part of every student’s education. In 2025, The Learning Institute published an article titled ‘Educating in the AI Era: The Urgent Need to Redesign
A common perception among educators is that taking instruction outdoors will lead to increased behavior issues and challenges with classroom management. In addition, many educators are not comfortable in nature. These fears actively prevent teachers, even those who understand the value of outdoor education, from taking learning beyond
In collaboration with Pacific Shellfish Institute (PSI), South Sound Bird Alliance and Olympia Community Sailing (OCS), PEI hosted a bilingual community engagement event on June 4. The goal was to increase community engagement among Latino Heritage communities and the general public with local watersheds. Approximately 50 community members
In 2023, the City of Spokane received a USDA USFS Urban Forestry grant aimed at expanding tree canopy, with a goal of reaching 30% coverage city-wide by 2030. The focus is on planting in low-canopy neighborhoods and maintaining existing trees. As part of this initiative, Urban Forestry is
California has one. So does Virginia. But when Sageview High School science teacher Amanda Helland went looking for a Career and Technical Education (CTE) framework for teaching Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in Washington State, she came up empty. “GIS has always been embedded into other courses,” says Helland,
Teachers attending a Youth Engaged in Sustainable Systems (YESS) program workshop in May had an energizing start to their first day when an Emmy Award-winning geologist provided the keynote address. Central Washington University professor Nick Zentner, host of the ‘Nick on the Rocks’ PBS-TV geology series, provided a
Tricia Goode has heard the message before: find community partners to supplement your classroom instruction. Often, it comes with no practical tips on where to look or how to get started. Fortunately, during a Forest as a Classroom Workshop in Yacolt Burn Forest this May, she found herself
Megan Klinich has attended multiple professional development workshops where participants debated the merits of teaching about forestry. As an Advanced Placement Environmental Science teacher in the process of creating a forestry course from scratch, she found those discussions counterproductive; she already knew the relevance of this critical industry
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