You’ll be happy to know that our domain name is registered for another year, thanks to Georgette’s husband who many many years ago registered Martinez Beavers and birthed us a website. Thanks Bruce!

And you’ll also be happy to know that the pamphlet on urban beavers is just about done and edited and ready for press. You can peruse it here if you’re so inclined. Which means its time to buckle down on the gran=t application which is why I’m so delighted that “Wild About Utah” aired this story yesterday.

So many good quotes to choose from!

This Is Why I Teach Outside on ‘Wild About Utah’

In February of this year, researchers published an integrative review of the literature on nature’s role as a catalyst for academic growth in children. They had this to say about their findings: “In academic contexts, nature-based instruction outperforms traditional instruction. The evidence here is particularly strong…” (Kuo, Barnes, and Jordan, 2019). 

According to the researchers’ report, “learning in and around nature is associated with intrinsic motivation, which, unlike extrinsic motivation, is crucial for student engagement and longevity of interest in learning” (Kuo et al., 2019). Even more “[e]ncouragingly, learning in nature may improve motivation most in those students who are least motivated in traditional classrooms” (Kuo et al., 2019).

I’ve been fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with students in the field. While out there, I’ve had that instinctual knowledge we all share reaffirmed while sitting next to a dammed-up beaver pond, watching third-graders reverse engineer the beaver dam out of rocks, sticks, silly putty, and freshly-chewed wood chips from a beaver log.

What’s that? Children learn to understand what they experience? And children learn more about nature when they’re outside in nature? No kidding! And a beaver pond features prominently in your education? What a coincidence! Ours too!