Outdoor learning site offers Wisconsin students a nature-enhanced education
During a scavenger hunt in the Superior School District’s forest property, a group of third- and fourth-grade students stumbled upon what they thought was an injured fawn, hiding among some seedlings.
School forest program coordinator Lori Danz investigated and discovered the fawn wasn’t hiding because it was hurt, but because it was a newborn. The kids “were so worried,” she remembers. “It was a very good lesson. We talked about the behavior of the deer and its mother.”
Located 20 miles south of the city of Superior, this 700-acre school forest is an extension of the traditional classroom, an outdoor learning site that enhances education and allows for impromptu learning about the natural world, with help from Enbridge and other members of the Superior-Duluth business community.
Ten local schools use the site for programming, with Danz coordinating transportation, helping craft lesson plans, and delivering instruction in the forest.
“If you can take concepts and relate them to the local environment, it will be much more meaningful for the students,” Danz explains.
Students who visit the forest study math, writing, history, art, or science—any subject that can be enhanced by natural landscapes, in stark contrast to urban Superior.
Consisting of towering white pines, mixed hardwoods, and wetlands, the school forest has been part of many wonderful moments of learning, Danz says – a kindergarten-aged boy who’d never been in a forest until he stepped off the bus at the site, a little girl who’d never touched an insect until she held a June bug.
“It’s little things,” she says, “but they’re magical.”
The school forest was originally used as an off-site classroom for at-risk students in the 1970s. In 2005, the district began covering transportation costs, Danz became the coordinator, and the school forest program has flourished ever since.
In fact, the school district has started planning for its expansion: a physical fitness course, a boardwalk to the wetlands, Native American curricula, overnight dormitories, and improvements to the main building. And because the public benefits from the site, Danz decided to approach the Superior business community for financial support.
“The campaign I came up with was Flock to the Forest—to help students and the community ‘flock to the forest’ for learning.”
Enbridge, which has a workforce of more than 830 people in the Twin Ports of Superior and Duluth, MN, jumped on board with a leadership gift of $10,000.
Flock to the Forest is “appealing on so many levels,” says Cindy Finch, Enbridge’s Minnesota-based senior public affairs officer. “It’s about environment, it’s about community, it’s about education.”
Finch says Enbridge hoped the donation would be used to attract support from other businesses, and that’s exactly how Danz is using it—to leverage more gifts.
“It’s a great alignment with our commitment to investing in, engaging with, and supporting an entire community,” says Finch.
