| Education
Benefits of an Outdoor Education Jim J.
Brescia, Ed.D
T
he San Luis Obispo County Office of Education operates the Rancho El Chorro Outdoor Educational Campus that is tucked away in the hills above San Luis Obispo, directly across from the Cuesta College main campus. These 250 protected acres include a nature preserve, a school campus, a one-room school house, incredible learning resources, and a regional conference center. Nestled between San Luis Obispo and Morro Bay off of Highway One, the Rancho El Chorro facility affords some wonderful hiking trails along Pennington Creek, an oak woodland forest, a teaching pond, water reclamation instructional creek, classrooms, a Rotary amphitheater, and Yurt Villages. I commend our local, state, and national Rotary Clubs for their dedication to our community, our youth, and society
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ger environmental attitudes, civic responsibility, and community participation strengthens through outdoor education. These types of schools are one tool in our tool belt for building a solid foundation of stewardship with the next generation of community leaders. through support of outdoor educaOutdoor education can connect tion. families and the greater community The facility provides hands-on with our schools. Many times when learning opportunities for students classrooms are outdoors, an entry studying science and ecology in point for involvement in educaa natural setting. The San Luis tion is presented. The first time my Obispo County Office of Education father became more involved with has been providing outdoor educa- my schooling was in the late 1960s tion to the community for over 40 on an outdoor education field trip. years. Nearly 300,000 Environmental education students and 10,000 is also a promising adults have strategy for helpenjoyed and ing students with benefited emotional, from the cognitive, and Now I see the secret of programs behavioral making the best person: it is to and facilichallenges. ties which Outdoor grow in the open air and to eat w e r e e d u c a t i on and sleep with the earth. previously has potential part of to combine ~Walt Whitman Camp San time outdoors Luis Obispo. with instrucOur outdoor tional practices education programs shown to be effecbring students closer to tive with multiple learnnature; teach about conservation, ing strategies. Students with both while providing fun and adven- strengths and challenges benefit ture. When students participate from outdoor education programs. in outdoor education, their under- The benefits of outdoor experistanding of the environment and ences have been explored through human communities grows. Stron- research on students with Atten-
tion Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Kuo and Faber Taylor in particular have researched this topic and have found green space to be highly beneficial for students identified with ADHD. Rancho el Chorro continues to remind me of a song heard playing on the radio when I was a young student. The song was a parody of a fictional Camp Granada, set to the tune of Ponchelli’s “Dance of the Hours.” This novelty song by Allan Sherman and Lou Busch is said to be based on letters Allan received from his son Robert who was away at camp. The name of the song originates from the first few lyrics. “Hello Muddah, hello Faddah. Here I am at Camp Granada. Camp is very entertaining. And they say we’ll have some fun if it stops raining.” Sherman’s lyrics go on to tell a comical story about campers gone missing or contracting deadly illnesses, fear of bears, and promises to let Aunt Bertha hug and kiss if allowed to come home. By the end of the song, the rain has stopped; the campers are swimming, sailing, and playing baseball. The camper asks his parents to “kindly disregard this letter.” The song has been translated into multiple languages and gained popularity globally because many cultures have some type of overnight camp serving as rite of passage for safe experiences away from the family.
Paso Robles Magazine | April 2020
