Four FIELD Edventures images. Upper left three educators in a river, upper right an educator looking out over a state park, bottom left students planting seeds, bottom right students making seed bombs.

FIELD Edventures offers professional learning opportunities, content development, and other support for educators and school leadership. We take a customized approach to our professional services in order to help you reach your goals and vision for learning.

Going outside to learn gave my class shared experiences to talk and write about. I heard quiet students speaking up and others listening and making connections to what they had to say. It was exciting and successful for everyone.

— Connie, elementary school teacher 

Professional learning—designed to reach your vision.

Looking for something that works with your schedule? Check out one of our events or participate in our online learning community. Interested in engaging your staff or colleagues in this work? We can design a personalized virtual workshop for your staff, come to your school for a customized in-service day, or to teach side-by-side through on-site instructional coaching. Contact us so we can learn more about your goals. Wondering what this looks like in practice? We'll be sharing "Stories from the FIELD" soon.

Take learning into the community.

Educators visit Alice's Garden in Milwaukee during a Summer Institute.
Educators visit Alice's Garden during a Summer Institute.

We work side by side with grade-level teams to transform their curriculum and look for opportunities to take learning outdoors and provide place-based, relevant educational experiences. FIELD Edventures coaches can help classroom educators develop content, connect with resources and speakers, or design units of study.  

Working with the FIELD Edventures has helped our students to become deeply connected to their community and more committed to their education.

— Skylar, high school advisor

Contact us to set up an initial conversation. 

Meeting you where you are. 

We get it. We have experienced how challenging, time consuming, and emotionally draining it can be to teach students and lead a school. We have also experienced immense joy as we reap rewards of taking the time needed to achieve our vision for our students. We have tried and failed to implement change and we have tried and succeeded. We learn.

Learn with us.

 

Start with the End in Mind. Be Flexible in the Journey.

Effective companies start with why. Effective educators do the same. Our approach to classroom education as well as professional learning embody this philosophy.  When we begin with the end in mind, or “the why,” we are clear on our destination. Since education is a business of working with people, we know that the best laid plans are just that: plans. We need to design learning that is responsible and flexible to meet the needs of  all learners—whether behind a student desk or a teacher desk. 

FIELD Edventures aims to integrate the great thinking of our colleagues from across the state and the country to further the use and effectiveness of place-based outdoor inquiry.

Learn more about why we take learning outdoors. 

Our approach to learning is informed by BEETLES Project, UC-Berkeley, Getting Smart, Teton Science School, and National Geographic.

BEETLES Design Principles

  • Engage Directly with Nature
  • Think Like a Scientist 
  • Learn Through Discussion
  • Experience Instruction Based on How People Learn 
  • Participate in Inclusive, Equitable, and Culturally Relevant Learning Environments. 

Power of Place Design Principles

  • Local to Global Context
  • Learner-centered
  • Inquiry-based
  • Design Thinking
  • Community As Classroom 
  • Interdisciplinary Approach 

National Geographic Geo-Inquiry Process 

  • Ask
  • Collect
  • Visualize
  • Create
  • Act

Wherever possible, FIELD Edventures prioritizes working with schools that are high poverty, low achieving, performing below the state average, and are identified on School and District Report Cards as “meeting few expectations” for student achievement, school attendance, and graduation rates. All three of these factors are impacted by student engagement, a critical non-academic outcome of hope.

We also look to build upon current efforts to strengthen investments, such as working with schools who have received G.O. Fund or Teacher Outdoor Environmental Education Fund grants through our partners at the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin.