GREAT BASIN OUTDOOR SCHOOL

Open a child’s eyes to the natural world

Spring flowers, midnight stars, a soaring hawk, a stream’s enchanting melodies – we all love the beauties and mysteries of nature.

But our children today are missing these essential parts of our world. Kids today don’t spend much time outside, and that’s damaging to them and to us.

A January 2010 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation showed that youngsters ages 8 through 18 years spend an average of more than 7½ hours a day on “entertainment media” – cell phones, iPods, video games, television, social networking.

How much time do these children have left to spend outdoors?

Who will become our future scientists, earth stewards, wildlife conservators, hikers, and recreation lovers?

How many will understand the natural systems of our planet?

Great Basin Outdoor School, a nonprofit group which provides multi-day outdoor science and nature camps at Lake Tahoe in Nevada, brings kids back outside.

Great Basin Outdoor School programs concentrate on teaching science to elementary and middle school students and fostering teambuilding, self-confidence and a can-do attitude in youngsters. Young adults get leadership training and volunteer service hours to assist and learn science alongside the younger students.

Great Basin Outdoor School curriculum includes natural sciences such as earth science, geology, astronomy, biology and aquatic ecology. Students volunteer on projects to keep Tahoe blue and learn to protect their own local watersheds.

Great Basin Outdoor School makes a special effort to serve students who have rarely visited the natural wonders like Lake Tahoe or the Truckee River right in their own backyards due to poverty, parental income or access. Recent surveys showed that 51% of students who stayed overnight with us said they had never hiked in the forest before, and 25% had never seen Lake Tahoe.

Can we afford to allow children to be ignorant of the world around us and to miss out on all the physical, intellectual, and psychological benefits of outdoor learning?

Please support Great Basin Outdoor School with a donation for a scholarship, program expenses, endowment or unrestricted to be used where needed most. Every donation, big or small, will help open children’s eyes to the future of our environment and the wonders of the outdoors.

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