Author: otherthings

Kids running through the woods with an instructor.
Forest Days are designed to bring students outside and into their local forest for place-based environmental education. Forest Day lesson topics include the carbon cycle, patterns in nature, the role of decomposers in the forest, food webs, and other interconnecting themes.
Nests that 3rd graders constructed during a lesson about bird eggs and nest types.
Each school forest functions as both an outdoor classroom and the learning material for each lesson; all Forest Day topics can be explored through the physical space of the forest.
Illustration of a monarch on milkweed in a Nature Journal.
On most weekdays around noon, Ridges staff make their way to the center table in the back offices to eat lunch. While this routine might feel repetitive, the conversations from these gatherings are anything but. Around this table, I have learned so much from my coworkers through their fascinations and questions about the natural world.
A common grackle flying with its wings extended.
Birds’ annual cycles are better defined as breeding, non-breeding, and migration rather than by calendar seasons.