Alder Creek Children's Forest invites area teachers and youth leaders to participate in Oregon Explorers, a new initiative connecting schools, technology, and natural resources, supported by a Gray Family Fund grant to ACCF. Oregon Explorers takes place-based education into the 21st century with cutting-edge technology, and supports a wide range of learning outcomes. Click here for our 2009-10 educators guide featuring Oregon Explorers programs. Our next Oregon Explorers workshop is scheduled for Monday June 14: A Watershed Approach to Forests and Technology (click here to register).

Oregon Explorers supports standards-based field, classroom, and computer lab activities utilizing online mapping technologies and building on the Oregon Explorer natural resources digital library sponsored by the Oregon State University Libraries and Oregon's Institute for Natural Resources. Click here for a PDF slideshow of Oregon Explorers. For slides from recent Oregon Explorers training workshops, see our Recent Events page. For a chart showing contributing organizations, see here. For a March 2010 online article, see here.

In a nutshell, Oregon Explorers activities consist of three phases: preparation, field exploration, and followup. The below links provide further details and sample activities relevant to the ACCF site.

1. Pre-field preparation: Classroom and computer activities that cover mapping and map-based background information on ecology, wildlife, and other topics.
2. Field exploration and learning via PLT and WILD curricula offered via an ACCF partnership with the Oregon Natural Resource Education Program, as well as other freely-available curricula such as that offered by the Oregon Geographic Alliance.
3. Post-field followup: Classroom and computer activities that give youth the opportunity to analyze, write about, and share their field experiences.

We are happy to visit your classroom or youth organization and provide a pre-field preparation activity, then plan a field exploration day and followup activities.

For further information on Oregon Explorers, feel free to visit our Oregon Explorers Moodle page, part of the Oregon Virtual School District. Note: to view special teacher resources you will need to register for ORVSD Moodle (it's free) and request an enrollment key for the teacher's page; please contact ACCF for more information.