For Educators
In a 2002 report called Closing the Achievement Gap, the State Education and Environmental Roundtable published findings based on work with 150 schools.
The summary reads in part: “Environment-based education produces student gains in social studies, science, language arts, and math; improves standardized test scores and grade-point averages; and develops skills in problem-solving, critical thinking and decision-making.”
Inspired by these kinds of possibilities, Muddy Sneakers has been conceived and designed to integrate with North Carolina’s Standard Course of Study, focused on science with extensions into other major academic subjects.
Weaving together a curriculum that builds on itself—up to 12 days through the year—Muddy Sneakers’ experiential program is designed to work with fifth and eighth grade public school classes. Each day-long Learning Expedition is led by a field instructor focused on connecting students with their surroundings through seeing, touching, smelling and learning about the nature that’s happening in their own backyards.
Field sites include DuPont State Forest, Montreat College, Panthertown Valley, Gorges State Park, and Pisgah National Forest, among others. The natural treasures of these areas, a land of streams, escarpments, hardwood forests, rock domes, and waterfalls, create a joy-inducing theater for teaching and learning that we believe will make a lifetime impression.
As a Muddy Sneakers teacher, you are warmly invited to join with us in detailing aspects of your class’s field experiences, in working in tandem with our field instructors and in offering ideas, notes, encouragements and ways we might improve our program.
Preface to Muddy Sneakers 5th grade Curriculum
