Make 2020 a great year

Treat Yourself & the Kids to Time Outdoors

Want to be healthier, kinder, more creative, and happier? For both children and adults, time spent in nature is therapeutic and provides physical, social, emotional, and intellectual benefits. Students who learn outdoors develop a sense of self, independence, confidence, creativity, decision-making and problem-solving skills, and empathy. A quick search yields volumes of documentation, some provided right here for you. So get outside and enjoy!

Outdoor Learning is Best!

Save a spot for your class in 2020 now or help support a snowshoe trip or a spring or fall science camp on the shore of Lake Tahoe for local students.

Why? School performance increases, it's healthy, it supports child development, it's fun, it develops active environmentally conscious citizens, and it helps connect families and communities.

Email Education Director Summer here

for a February snowshoe day at Galena Creek or an overnight spring or fall Tahoe trip with hiking, research boat, and DOING earth science and life science rather than just reading about them. Plus more day field studies in the fall. At science camp students stay in cozy heated cabins, enjoy great meals, meet curriculum standards, make new friends, and have their eyes opened to new possibilities with new experiences and new role models.

See more on our website here & get Registration Form

Secrets Under the Snow

The National Science Foundation reports on how plants and animals survive in the barely-explored habitat of the snow. The subnivium, the secret world under the snow, could actually get colder in a warming world with less snow to provide insulation. See more winter ecology and animal survival strategies at this National Science Foundation link.

Here's a fun beautifully illustrated book we recommend to teach kids about the secret world under the snow, Who Lives in the Snow? by Jennifer Berry Jones.

When we take students out on snowshoes we do an activity to simulate the phenomena of foxes or coyotes using their acute sense of hearing to find prey under the snow.

You can buy a used copy and promote recycling.

For Our Planet's Health

Be inspired by our peerless Tahoe and Great Basin, and help us raise a new generation of Earth stewards. Share your love of nature with your kids and grandkids. Encourage and assist your child's teacher to bring classes to Great Basin Outdoor School where they learn to love and understand our unique ecosystem and volunteer on eco-projects to protect our watershed or reduce fire danger. Active outdoor learning is good for kids and good for the planet.

Support Our Vision in 2020:

"Experiential education in the natural world will nurture children and young adults and empower them to make positive choices in their own lives, productive contributions to their communities, and sustainable decisions for the Earth."