Day 300 - Operation Explore
Operation Explore is the outdoor course I created to bring environmental education to the masses in a fun and engaging way. It is meant to be short but sweet. Designed to be a two-week overview of different topics that build off one another, it incorporates a number of my favorite things: picture books, art, and nature play. A rough look at the schedule I’ve used in the past is this:
Day 1 - Introduction to the Outdoors
Day 2 - Trees
Day 3 - Tree Life Cycle
Day 4 - Plant & Animal Needs
Day 5 - Animal Shelters
Day 6 - Den Creation
Day 7- Hibernate, Activate, Migrate
Day 8 - Birds
Day 9 - Insects
Day 10 - Ecosystem
Initially designed as a summer program, Operation Explore (OE) includes both indoor and outdoor strategies should Mother Nature not be cooperative. The class is meant to build off of the previous day's learning, leaving the explorer with a more broad and connected gras of the world around them once their exploration is complete. Pre-Covid, I taught this course back-to-back for two week periods at two different school districts. Though it has been on the shelf since the pandemic, I am hoping to give it a more permanent home at Craneview on Plainview moving forward. I feel I could spread it out over an entire summer and even go deeper into the concepts being explored. This would allow family flexibility while also extending the learning opportunities over time, which will give explorers more time to connect to the items being taught and investigated.
I’d also like to see how I can incorporate other new items into the class. With access to chickens, a garden, and plenty of land in need of restoration, both service learning and citizen science offer new experiences that can add depth to what OE offers. It also provides opportunities for an offshoot course that takes exploring into action with more pointed and specific tasks.
I’m excited to bring OE to the farm. I believe it’s a wonderful way to start the process of sharing our land and building relationships with the community. But while OE is a great start, it's only a start.
We’ve got some other ideas up our sleeves.
