Columbus, Grandhaven and Sue Buel elementary schools will receive grant funding for outdoor school programs in the 2018-19 school year.
The funding will cover the overnight camp at OMSI’s Camp Gray in Newport, Oregon, that Columbus and Grandhaven have participated in over the past few years. Sue Buel will expand its current two-day program exploring the outdoors at Metsker Park.
The funds will be allocated from Oregon Measure 99, passed in 2016, which established the “Outdoor School Education Fund.” The program, first established in 1957, is designed to move students out of the school classrooms into the outdoors to learn, immersed in nature. Students learn about soil, water, plants and animals, as well as natural sciences specific to the local community and economy.