Southeastern Nature School’s Mission
Provide a collaborative, compassionate, and attuned learning environment for middle school students that aligns with the rhythms of nature. We offer an inclusive educational path that cultivates grounding, playful, and expansive experiences through observation and participation in the natural world.
Photo credit: Katie Sutton
Vision
Southeastern Nature School’s vision is that the opportunities for growth and development that we provide our students will foster a joy of learning, positive emotional & social health, a deep connection with themselves & their classmates, as well as our human and natural communities.
Photo credit: Katie Sutton
Why Forest School?
"The Forest Kindergarten model, through its interest-led programming, inquiry-based teaching style and emphasis on social and emotional development promotes kindergarten readiness in the following ways: it leads to better problem solving; higher critical thinking; encourages excitement about learning and retains the desire to learn; it teaches kids HOW to problem solve not WHAT the answers are; it expands creativity; it promotes a willingness to take risks; and it results in children who have better peer communication, emotional resilience, lower frustration levels, higher perseverance, and who work more cooperatively with their class mates."
-Erin Kenny, Founder of one of the first Forest Schools in the United States
“To be fully human is to recognize that we came from the natural world and it remains a part of us, without it, being fully human is something we cannot do.
— Michael McCarthy (British naturalist and author)
“Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.”
— Albert Einstein
