The Forest School at Marshall School

Engaging students' curiosity and learning through the power of the natural world.

The Forest School is the lower division of Marshall School in Duluth. Serving students from KG - 4th grade. Children at the Forest School learn literacy and numeracy skills via nature-based play and wonder-guided inquiry; they grow through meaningful relationships with others and the land, and develop roots of compassion, community, self-worth, and resilience by spending 50% of time outside.

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Overview

Information on this page is provided by the innovator and has not been evaluated by HundrED.

Updated May 2023

Web presence

2021

Established

96 2024

1

Countries

Students lower

Target group

Our primary goal is for students to increase their sense of agency and become architects of their own learning. The outdoors provides a canvas for sparking curiosity and increasing engagement and ownership of success and failure. Students have time and space to dig deep into problem solving, which is critically important in today’s world.

About the innovation

Why did you create this innovation?

Vision for the Forest School arose from a growing need in the community for continued nature-based learning in the elementary years. Marshall School has a strong history of providing educational opportunities that focus on cultivating students’ gifts and passion for lifelong learning in Middle and Upper School. The Forest School is an opportunity for Marshall to have a greater impact on education.

What does your innovation look like in practice?

Learning in the Forest School occurs within a rich and systematic context of brain-based and research-supported experiences that grow the habits, skills, and dispositions necessary for learners to thrive.

While the Forest School curriculum is emergent and adaptive to the individual and group needs, the Forest School draws inspiration from several philosophies, including approaches found in nature-based, EL (formerly known as Expeditionary Learning), and inquiry-based pedagogies. The Forest School curriculum seeks the intersection of student-initiated learning with reading, writing, and arithmetic skills at all students’ developmental stages.

Through equitable, diverse, and inclusive teaching, students experience autonomous and communal learning that grows compassion, stewardship, responsibility, and curiosity. The Forest School’s commitment to long-term outdoor experiences develops connections among learners and the land to foster creative, resilient, and healthy children.

How has it been spreading?

This past year we enrolled 62 students in the program. Students have developed relationships with their learning, play, story, trust, power, risk, the land, and their own unique learning pathways. Through systematic and direct instruction on social-emotional skills in conjunction with providing students 90 minutes of free play in nature every day, we see significant gains in students' abilities to name and experience emotions, regulate, and make repairs when having negatively impacted the community. Additionally, the complex ecosystem of nature provides countless sparks of curiosity for students to journey along their own, unique learning pathways. From this students also have more reserve to hone their attention during their daily dives into math and literacy.

If I want to try it, what should I do?

Step 1: Find like minded adults to champion the move outdoors
Step 2: Find a safe place to engage kids outdoors with necessary permissions to use
Step 3: Gaining knowledge of risk management for your setting
Step 4: Create a pilot group to launch daily free-play activities
Step 5: Think how you can teach current instruction using the outdoors
Step 6: Expand cycle

Media

Duluth school plans to take learning outside with its Forest School

https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/news/marshall-school-expands-primary-grades-with-nature-based-program

Implementation steps

Create a coalition of diverse stakeholders

We envision that this innovation will become part of school, either through the creation of a brand new elementary school or part of an existing school. It is essential one has broad support for this initiative with various stakeholders. Working in existing systems requires the highest level of support to successfully launch.

Identify the space

After building support, it is important to identify a space outdoors that has the capacity for the number of children in the program, that is safe, and that allows students frequent and long-term contact with nature. It may be necessary to gain permission or pay fees to use certain wild spaces.

Set a budget

Within an existing structure of a school we have not found the cost of going to a Forest School model any more expensive than a traditional school. Staffing will be the highest cost of the budget. Things to consider include transportation - if needed, insurance, proper clothing for the outdoors, staffing, lunches, and supplies.

Identify a Design Team

During the start up phase three members of our staff had six months to develop the program. They developed the philosophy, founding values, curriculum and spaces to be used. All three transitioned into members of the teaching staff when the first year with students was launched.

Recruit and enroll students

Getting the word out is important. Hold information sessions with students and parents and determine if there is a good fit. It is important not only explaining what the Forest School is, but what it is not.

Launch Pilot

All the prep is done, students have enrolled, and now is the time to begin the program. Students at our school arrive at 7:30 am and finish at 2:30 pm. Welcome them into your school and have fun.

Evaluate at Key Points

At the end of each day, debriefing occurs with the staff as we look at micro changes that need to happen. Because our school functions in 6-week blocks, at the end of each six weeks, we look at changes that might need to happen for the next block of learning.

Scale up and Expand

As the program becomes more popular how do you want to expand and scale up? Our program has incorporated collaboration with outside agencies and universities. We place student teachers and Americorps Volunteers in the program. We are also aware of the carrying capacity of the land, and as we grow, we are iterating ways to maintain a sustainable ecological footprint.