Feroce+Curriculum+Review+1

Emma Feroce Children’s Forest Curriculum

This curriculum was developed by the Northwest Cascades Institute. They opened up programs like the Northwest Cascades Environmental Learning Center, Mountain School, Youth Leadership Adventures, Graduate M. ED. Residency and many more learning programs paired with the National Park Service and the City of Seattle.
 * What organization developed the curriculum module you are evaluating? **

 This organization states their mission as -”Our mission is to conserve and restore Northwest environments through education.” Northwest Cascades Institute explains how they want to conserve the Northwest Washington State Area through education because if people learn about it, they will more likely to care about the environment and understand how to help and make a difference. This organization wants to provide this education mostly through a very hands on experience. Bringing a lively education to their students, Northwest Cascades Institute wants to not only teach, but make people care as well.
 * What is the mission of the organization? **

The educational mission and philosophy of the organization seems to lie within the four key themes stated by them that run through all of Northwest Cascade Institute’s Programs: > > > > With these four themes, it can be established that they want their students in their program to receive a very well rounded education- learning everything from science to arts- and to do so using the environment around them. Combining both they believe will give their students a quality education. Northwest Cascades Institute’s philosophy is embedded on their website in their section called ‘We Believe’. In this section you can find their beliefs they hope to get across in their program which ties back to their beliefs on how to educate: > > > >
 * What is the educational mission and philosophy of the organization? **
 * We teach at the convergence of natural and cultural history, science, humanities and the arts
 * We value the importance of public lands for education, recreation and renewal
 * We strive to inspire and support broad participation in informed civic engagement
 * We are committed to quality education, effective community engagement, sound business practices and a clear sense of purpose
 * Powerful, place-based learning experiences inspire environmental and community stewardship
 * Hands-on learning about the environment should begin in childhood and continue throughout life
 * Intimate, informed contact with the natural world helps people lead healthy, well-balanced lives
 * Fun is an essential part of learning, engagement and health.

This module of a very interactive education aims to teach and bring to people a closer relationship with nature- specifically in the northwestern Washington State region. Northwest Cascades Institute believes that people can best obtain this objective by actually interacting with it. I think that the way this program is designed does produce the intended learning outcome. Because they want people to have a closer relationship with nature, they can accomplish this by actually having their students go out and interact with this nature- and that is exactly what they do. If this program was just taught in a classroom and the students never went and saw this region, this program would not reach all of their goals.
 * What does the curriculum module aim to teach? In other words: what are the learning outcomes supposed to be? Do you think the curriculum is appropriately designed to produce the intended learning outcomes? **

This curriculum seems to teach only the beginnings of the EcoEd Research Group curriculum. EcoEd and Northwest Cascades Institute both seek to teach about the environment. However, Northwest Cascades Institute focuses their curriculum around just nature, whereas EcoEd seems to focus more on educating their students about the consequences of hurting nature and how this happens. If Northwest Cascades Institute layered in more about why they wish to conserve the area and what lead to the need to conserve, these curriculums would look very similar. Although interacting with the nature that Northwest Cascades Institute aims to conserve is vital to the curriculum, teaching their students to understand how their own actions could potentially destroy this ecosystem, like EcoEd would include, would make their program more effective.
 * Does this curriculum teach the kind of literacies the EcoEd Research Group advocates? What could be layered into this curriculum so that it address more of the learning outcomes that the EcoEd Group advocates? **

Link to curriculum: [|__http://ncascades.org/discover/north-cascades-institute__]