frequently asked questions

our nature-based outdoor education program is experiential, and involves social-emotional learning through a process of restorative practices.  outdoor education allows for community-building and restorative justice circles to take place, and make meaning of, a naturally restorative setting: city parks, seaside beaches, wooded hillsides, and other public lands. 

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outdoor education provides both physical and mental health benefits.  short-term benefits can be seen with the frequent use of green spaces, such as reduced levels of stress with physical activity in nature.  long-term benefits include healthier lifestyles that reduce the risk of chronic illness.  with access and equity, nature-based education leads to successful health outcomes and a greater sense of belonging in the natural world.

restorative practices build and repair relationships.  community-building circles allow for relationships to strengthen, and make meaningful, healing and healthy, interpersonal bonds.  restorative justice circles repair relationships that have been harmed, bringing together a group to support both the harmed individual or community and the person responsible for the harm done.  To both of these ends, a restored sense of belonging and personal responsibility for social behavior leads to successful outcomes through the processing of actions and the empowerment of community agreements. 

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formal restorative practices follow a protocol, a way of facilitating and participating.  community-building circles and restorative justice circles are collaborative, requiring group expectations and common topics for discussion.  the process is instructional through the formal facilitation process, and it is instructive and collaborative with the participation of the group members.

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in the event that an incident occurs on an outing that requires repairing harm, a restorative practice will take place, and may be more or less formal depending on the circumstances and the decisions of group leaders.

trauma-responsive teaching involves a variety of practices.  group leaders from their respective organization will collaborate on identifying risk-factors that would trigger individuals or groups beyond their instructional level.  knowledge of present levels for nature-based social-emotional learning are addressed through the pre-assessment, or collaborative, process.  some of the intervention techniques that will be modeled and taught in discussion include: active and responsive listening, providing trigger warnings, speaking without triggering, motivational interviewing, and use of restorative practices.

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trauma-responsive teaching as a restorative practice is not without some social-emotional risk.  topics that will guide discussion will be collaborated on and formalized with a circle planning guide, which will ground the formal protocols of the circle discussion.  risk will be mitigated through the collaborative, and culturally-responsive, circle planning process.  group leaders will receive their own assessment of the group's present-level of social-emotional learning, and topics of discussion will be developed along a spectrum of low to high risk.  initially, groups may have low-risk topics, and higher risk topics will be developed as appropriate for needs and progress monitoring.

learning is evaluated using dynamic assessment.  dynamic assessment involves pre-assessment, an intervention, and post-assessment.  in this context, an intervention refers to the social-emotional learning process that is facilitated on an outing, comprised of restorative practices in a nature-based setting.

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in education, formative assessment takes place during an academic or behavioral intervention.  formative assessment takes place during the circle discussions.  summative assessment takes place after an intervention.  progress is monitored when the pre-assessment and the post-assessment are the same, while the instructional intervention process (i.e. outing and circle facilitation) adjusts and adapts based on learning styles and needs.

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in the event that the overall goal of an outing requires more specific objectives not already reflected in a circle planing guide, collaboration will reflect the development of benchmarks for progress monitoring.

social-emotional learning is broadly defined by the application of an appropriate emotional response given social circumstances.  in order to develop the skill of applying oneself in this way, emotions must be addressed, and the socialization of these skills must take place.  the focus of our community-building and restorative justice circles become meaningful experiences because of the social processing of emotionally significant topics, as found in the content developed for a circle planning guide.  for the purposes of our program, all circles seek to develop self-regulation, responsibility, social competence (i.e. social skills), empathy and resilience.