Adventures Beyond the Classroom started as a passion for being outdoors and wanting to bring that focus into the classroom. My first teaching job was at Endeavor Alternative High School in Colorado, and I was fortunate to help write the curriculum for and teach an Outdoor Adventures class there. I realized that students benefited mentally and physically but were also learning transferable skills like problem-solving, leadership, self-awareness, and collaboration - skills that would help them well beyond high school.

I took the idea of initiating an outdoor program as a class and made it my focused Capstone to earn a Master’s in Outdoor Education Leadership. Extended research of literature, running research case studies, and writing lessons that could fall under the bracket of outdoor education while still meeting Academic Standards from other subjects culminated in creating Adventures Beyond the Classroom (ABC).

ABC is a website for educators and parents to help demonstrate the importance of outdoor programming and the realistic idea that public schools can incorporate an outdoor program.

I hope this inspires others to seek out ways to include outdoor programming, even if that just means doing a few lessons within their own subject matter. ABC strives to become its own organization that can propel OE into the mainstream of Colorado Schools, offering every teen the opportunity to interact and learn from nature.

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Amy Fischer
Executive Director and Founder, Educator