Take them places they have not been...Show them things they have not seen.
We need the wildness of nature. Thoreau
"Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons," Walt Whitman wrote. "It is to grow in the open air, and to eat and sleep with the earth." Indeed, the natural world is an excellent stage upon which students may learn about self-discovery and risk taking. As students become more familiar with the workings of the natural world, they can begin to cultivate certain habits of interaction. Attentiveness, for instance, is an essential tool for learning about natural processes. Through careful and consistent observations students learned to listen and see.
Why We Go Outside
Nature Is One of Our Greatest Teachers
When we step outside, we enter another classroom. A stream teaches change and interdependence. A tree teaches patience and resilience. A spider web reveals engineering, while lichen demonstrates partnership.
Our role is not to provide every answer, but to help students slow down, observe carefully, ask questions, and discover what creation is revealing.
Nature teaches:
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Observation before conclusion
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Curiosity before certainty
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Patience before understanding
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Stewardship before consumption
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Wonder before explanation
Learning Becomes Experience
Outdoor learning turns information into experience. Students use mathematics to measure trees, science to study streams, art to capture landscapes, and language to describe their discoveries.
The outdoors connects subjects that often seem separate in the classroom. It also connects students with one another, with a place, and with a shared purpose.
Connection before content.
Experience Strengthens Learning
Exploring outdoors engages the senses, movement, curiosity, creativity, and problem-solving. These rich experiences strengthen memory and help students understand ideas more deeply than reading alone can accomplish.
A field trip changes more than a student’s surroundings—it creates lasting pathways for learning.
Reflection Gives Experience Meaning
Activity alone does not guarantee learning. Students need time to pause and consider what they discovered. Journaling, watercolor painting, conversation, or a quiet Whisper Spot can help them connect the experience with the natural world, one another, and themselves.
Creation Leads Us to the Creator
Nature’s beauty, order, and interdependence point beyond creation to the Creator. As students explore His world, they discover something of His wisdom, generosity, and care.
We go outside to cultivate minds that observe, hearts that wonder, and lives that care. We allow nature to become one of our greatest teachers—deepening knowledge, strengthening relationships, and drawing students closer to their Creator.
Observe deeply. Wonder freely. Learn fully. Care faithfully.
Cumberland Island
Scriptures explicitly identifies lives being changed as a result of a wilderness journey. Noah, Moses, Elijah, and Jesus all spent 40 days in wilderness environments. While we do not follow this biblical model, specifically, it still offers a cutting edge approach to teaching and academic learning that leads people into a deeper knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Throughout history, God has used the solitude and simplicity of wilderness settings to transform lives. Cumberland Island National Seashore provides the environment for students to experience a closer walk with Him.
Ellicott Rock Wilderness Area
Wilderness environments provide an ideal setting to develop leadership skills through the progression of education, modeling, observation, evaluation, and application. In the Biology II and Spiritual Retreats classes students learn to submit to leadership, establish leadership, and express leadership. Students learn the fundamentals of leadership while forming skills and abilities that help them lead others toward achieving common goals.
WMA teaches leadership techniques, attitudes, and behavior while emphasizing integrity and communication skills. Instructors help identify the gifts, talents, and potential weakness of each student and then mentor them, helping develop their ability as a leader and understanding of leadership principles.
During week-long courses, students are required to serve in teams of two as Leaders of the Day (LOD). LODs are taught how to read topographic maps and each morning prepare and present a wilderness travel plan
Seacamp
Seacamp shows the way to the sense of wonder within you that will last a lifetime. Through its marine science program, underwater exploration and study, beckon you to a world apart. At Seacamp students experience "immersion education" by getting an opportunity to embrace the local environment by being completely surrounded by it.
Blue water and coral canyons teeming with invertebrates, fishes and mammals will enrich your understanding of that larger, watery portion of our planet where not only tomorrow will live ... but you, as well!...
Seacamp is minutes from the only living coral reef in all America. This is the only one remaining. And here you can see an almost endless variety of marine life.
