People discover their abilities, values, passions, and responsibilities in situations that offer adventure and the unexpected. Learning happens best with emotion, challenge, and the requisite support. The primary task of the teacher is to help students overcome their fears and discover they can do more than they thought they could.

Learning situations should be created to foster curiosity about the world. This can be done by offering experiences that give participants something important to think about, time to experiment, and time to make sense of what is observed.

Children and adults should become increasingly responsible for directing their own personal and collective learning. Learning is seen as both a personal process of discovery and a social activity.

Ideas are respected. Mutual trust between adult and student relationships. Older students often mentor younger ones, and all students feel physically and emotionally safe.

Students build confidence and capacity by taking risks and meeting increasingly difficult challenges. Failures are considered part of learning and viewed as a way to refine perseverance. Disabilities are seen as opportunities.

Competition exists but it is not against one another. Instead, competition is to achieve personal best with rigorous standards of excellence. The value of friendship, trust, and group action is evidenced through the integration of individual and group development.

The richness of ideas, creative power, problem-solving ability, and respect for others is increased with inclusive environments whether it be age, gender, ethnicity, or value systems.

The human spirit is refreshed through learning to become stewards of the earth and future generations. An understanding of cause and effect and reoccurring cycles forms naturally from extended interactions with nature.

Time alone to explore thoughts, make personal connections, and create ideas brings strength and wellness. Extended time to exchange reflections with others creating empathy and communion.

A primary outcome is to prepare students with the attitudes and skills to learn from and be of service to others. Consequential acts of meaningful service create a greater awareness of the need of personal contribution and the fellowship that grows from it.

The understanding is that there is “no bad weather only inappropriate clothing”. Children build adaptability, resilience, & a personal understanding to the changes in seasons.

As we are in Central Illinois where the weather is never predictable, class sessions will be moved indoors during dangerous weather conditions, such as thunderstorms, blizzards, below zero windchill, winds around or above 40 mph, and tornado warnings.

Students’ interests, questions, and inquiry direct the learning.

All assessments are product (ex. student made portfolio, craft, built structure, nature journal, etc.) or performance-based. Students also do self-evaluations.

Activities are designed in which students, teachers, and community members work collaboratively to benefit the local community, and during which students get as close as possible to the reality that awaits them after school. The community becomes a learning laboratory. Students can gain enhanced self-esteem and improved social skills.

Reflection on the learning experiences occurs each day, developing thoughtful connections between the learning and the student’s strength and weaknesses.

Life skill development and application (managing time, setting goals, exercising leadership roles) are completely integrated in the project and students demonstrate growth as they participate in the project.

The theory by Howard Gardener that people have different types of intelligences, therefore children should be in learning environments that do not have a sole focus on increasing intellectual capacity, but instead focus on delivery alternatives that honor the 8 types of intelligences—i. e. interpersonal, intrapersonal, kinesthetic, linguistic, logical, musical, naturalist, and spatial-visual.

Children have a range of abilities in all the categories.

https://verywellmind.com/gardeners-theory-of-multiple-intelligences-2795161