This rain these last several months has been incredible! I’ve never experienced so much since I started teaching 100% outdoors in 2007. It’s so cool to be able to actually view the watershed filling up from the bottom up (except for runoff). Now, Wildcat Canyon is thoroughly waterlogged. Little rivulets are everywhere, creating miniature river scenes. The kids love experimenting with all the balls of foam that form on the surface. We can readily see how erosion and sedimentation are happening, because the landscape changes with each wave of storms. We’ve even found tadpoles on the soaked trails!

Enrollment

Now enrolling!

-2023 - 2024 school year.

For more information, please go to www.outside.school:

Nature News

Having an unplanned curriculum leads to all manner of fun adventures, so when a recent windstorm blew over a palm tree we knew to be inhabited by bees, we couldn’t help but get curious!

3/22/23:

As we were leaving yesterday, S noticed the big palm tree at the park’s entrance lawn was listing heavily against the Coast Live Oak. When we saw J and E (two rangers) this morning they said it had fallen over! They estimated that it happened around 4:00 yesterday afternoon. It turns out that it was the other palm tree, the one with the fatter trunk and the bee hive inside that we discovered about three years ago. What an amazing scene!

C (another ranger) says they're having someone come out to try to find the queen; they don't know yet whether she's in the top or the bottom of the tree. So, hopefully the rest can rehome themselves somewhere.

3/23/23:

What a lucky day!* 

*When I saw the beekeeper as I drove to the park this morning, I crossed my fingers that we’d get to go watch him work. We did! S (a parent) joined us for the walk down the hill. Lucky us, not only did the beekeeper say that it was okay to watch him, he brought us some honeycomb! H doesn’t didn’t like it, but S, S, and I were like happy little clams. YUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OMG I ❤️ our little school so much!!! 💞💞💞

“Thanks to the bees!”, were S’s words after we got to eat the honey they made. He was so impressed that they’d made it. Even though we all knew how it’s made, it’s something else entirely to get to experience it like this, and the taste of fresh, LOCAL honey. Amazing! The dark honeycomb is from Fall and Winter. The honey is thick and comes from tree sap. As the Spring flower honey comes in, it will be light in color and runny. This taste is home.

After he’d doffed his beekeeper’s outfit and donned his street clothes, the beekeeper came over, gave us more honeycomb, and explained what he was doing: 

He looked around inside the palm’s trunk for a place where there was an extra amount of bees, as that was most likely where the queen was. He said that’s safer and faster than teasing her out individually. Then, he put that mass of the honeycomb into the bottom half of the new hive, then put a top half on that which contains new slats. The bees from the bottom half (except the queen) will come up, and the bees that are outside can explore the new hive all day. At the end of the day, the bees will want to cozy up somewhere safe and warm, so hopefully most of the hive will have explored then moved into their new digs. If the queen is there, great! If not, the bees will give royal jelly to a female larva, and she’ll turn into a new queen.

He’s been keeping bees since around 2011, and these bees will be going to Urban Tilth, making food for our community. It turns out he’s their deputy director! We ❤️ Urban Tilth!!!

3/30/23:

Checking out the bee palm. S managed to glean another piece of honeycomb even though it was almost entirely gone, and I was able to get a piece of the wax for my natural history collection.

Planning Ahead

Marking a major difference between children in traditional schools and those at Outside School, one of the students verbalized their thinking after taking in all the above:

-If the bees should be gone by the next day, then,

-They should be able to ask their parent to visit the fallen palm tree the next day when they had piano lessons nearby, then,

-They should be able to access more honeycomb safely.

See more photos and read more about our bee experiences with my “lesson plan,” Bees in the Park:

Inspiration and Resources

”The Ruins of a 1910s Sanitarium Are Hidden in the East Bay Hills”

Here’s an article by Sam Mauhay-Moore from SF Gate about a historic feature in our park, Wildcat Canyon. It’s been a traditional favorite place for the Outside School kids to play:

“What I Learned From Being Screamed At By a Parent”

I will tell you that teaching is the most rewarding and challenging profession I can imagine! Find some camaraderie with a fellow teacher in this article:

“Book Review: No Green Pill”

This book review by Pollyanna Rhee for Landscape Architecture Magazine is fascinating, and I’m sure the book itself is as well: The Topography of Wellness: How Health and Disease Shaped the American Landscape. Check it out:

“Nature Swagger- Stories and Visions of Black Joy in the Outdoors”

What an uplifting, celebratory book by Rue Mapp! I highly recommend it.

“Homeschooling: I'm Screwing Them Up, Right?”

I LOVE this article! Some Outside School students are homeschooled (and registered with California as such). I’m a huge advocate of people finding systems for educating their children outside traditional public or private classrooms. If you’re interested in this idea, please check it out:

“Safety Guidance for Windy Days”

I put together a resource for caregivers on teachoutside.org for risk management on windy days:

Take care,

Heather

Heather Taylor, EMT

Founder/Director/Teacher, Outside School (www.outside.school)

Founder, Teach Outside (www.teachoutside.org)

California Master Teacher

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