Column: Nature levels the learning field and should become a bigger part of the state's education effort

Riverkeeper's note: The following column was written by Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper John Zaktansky to run with the overview story on forest schooling in preview of the April 14-17, 2025, training in our area. You can contact him via email by clicking here.

Approximately 20 years ago, my wife and I worked at a group home for troubled adolescents.

These teens came from all over the state, placed by various county Children & Youth and Juvenile Probation offices with a wide variety of abusive backstories, mental health issues, histories of behaviorally acting out, a smorgasbord of prescribed medications and conflicting therapeutic needs.

Back then, a lot less was known about how to appropriately address any one of the specific needs or diagnoses that crossed the group home’s door – but especially how to manage all of these types of concerns under the same roof in different combinations.

However, one thing that always seemed to resonate the best with the youths I worked with were outdoor adventure trips.

What started as incentive opportunities for those that behaved and “leveled-up” at the group home – a short fishing trip during trout season, a hike, a trip to my mom’s farm to brush out one of her horses – quickly became a therapeutic tool.

Teens who would bottle up their emotions, shut down in the thick of daily life and/or need to put on an air of having it all together or being the “inner-city street thug without a care” at the group home would quickly transform when immersed in nature.

I think a lot of it is that these kids saw themselves in this world. The more they explored and discovered, the more they realized they weren’t alone in the cycle of survival. Creatures from insects to apex predators find ways to adapt to their environment to blend in, protect themselves and their families, make a life and impact others.

Within that, they found compassion and the ability – much of the time – to drop the protective walls around their own issues and do some much-needed processing and unloading of emotional baggage on a path toward healing.

Excited about the advances we saw from these programs and wanting to potentially adapt more toward an outdoor therapy program, we visited a specialized therapeutic boys camp near Lock Haven.

Again, this was nearly two decades ago, but for me, it was the first glimpse at what forest schooling could look like. The program brought in boys from all over Pennsylvania and a few other states for an 18-month experience all in the woods.

One of the first things that caught my eyes were tents that were carefully built from scratch, each measurement and lashing intentionally part of the boys’ schoolwork.

They measured and tweaked roof pitch and water flow off, collecting water for other uses. They calculated the amount of firewood burned in the woodstoves built into their tents based on outside temperatures, graphing upcoming weather reports to mathematically determine how much wood they needed per week. They incorporated forestry skills – burning different types of wood and gauging how well and long they lasted, factoring that into the formula of what cooked the best, what heated the best. And that was just one area of living life outdoors in the elements for 18 months straight.

They journaled at various parts of their day, worked on letters to home, presentations to the others in the program and looked at literature (including poetry and songs) connected to outdoor living.

They each took turns in a leadership role to learn how to be better communicators and leaders, developing an inner government structure that provided a real-life social studies experience they could then compare to government and history of our state, country and world.

They cooked their own food – sometimes over the stoves but usually over campfires. They hand-washed and mended any torn clothing.

And, of course, throughout it all, they explored and discovered nature through hikes and stream studies and tree climbing and other guided adventures. One young man was excited to tell me all about a black bear that walked through his campsite while he sat a few feet away in his tent, watching. The story wasn’t one of fear, but of awe and respect.

Ultimately, to these kids, academics weren’t just abstract concepts from a textbook – they were tangible real-life opportunities to learn hands-on. To problem-solve with critical thinking skills that mimic scenarios they’ll need later in life and they developed a deeper appreciation for their natural resources in the process.

That is what excites me about the forest schooling movement. It is an atmosphere that levels the learning field for all students. While some may do well in a structured, traditional classroom setting, all can find common ground in some facet of nature – at least having some portion of their school week dedicated to natural engagement and exploration.

In fact, if you look closely at our state’s push toward STEELS (Science, Technology & Engineering, Environmental Literacy and Sustainability) standards and connected STEM learning, the goal is to move away from memorization and textbook learning and more hands-on problem solving and critical thinking projects – things that can easily be integrated into nature school programming by those willing to creatively introduce it as students show they are ready and engaged to tackle it.

When my daughter expressed interest in starting a nature preschool and located a certification program in Tennessee, we traveled together to meet Dr. Jean Lomino and explore sections of the Cherokee National Forest near Cleveland (Tennessee) this past October, observing the Woodsong Forest School and meeting educators from all over the world.

It only reinforced what I learned from those trips with group home teenagers and my visit to the boys camp – that we need to be more active in incorporating forest/nature schooling opportunities into all our education. It isn’t a gimmick or a field trip to burn a school day at the end of the academic year but a tool that should become a bigger part of the puzzle.

From a Riverkeeper standpoint, this is also crucial because kids who are engaged early with nature are more likely to respect it and protect it when they get older. As author and nature-based educator David Sobel suggests in his article/book Beyond Ecophobia: What's important is that children have an opportunity to bond with the natural world, to learn to love it, before being asked to heal its wounds."

So, along those lines, we are excited to have Dr. Lomino bring her expertise to central Pennsylvania in mid-April for a Forest School Teacher Institute teacher and naturalist certification course. It will allow us to continue these conversations and hopefully to increase the role of nature-based learning in our state’s education system on every level.

Learn more about the course and register while spaces remain open by clicking here.