At Whole Earth Nature School we often say that we are “different” than other programs available in our area. We note that there are many great programs that already existed before us but that we founded Whole Earth with something else in mind. Well, if it is true that there are already many great programs in the Eugene area (see the left sidebar) what the heck makes us so “different”?
What it really comes down to is our philosophy of how humans relate to nature. We believe that we are nature. We humans depend on nature for all our needs from food to shelter to materials to 
build our cell phones and ipads. And yet there is an underlying assumption in most of our lives that nature is somehow separate from us. Our mission at Whole Earth Nature School is to help humans rediscover our essential identity as part of nature. We help people get out of their shell and immerse themselves in nature in a close and interactive way.
Most modern people I know see themselves as something completely separate from the natural world. It is subtle but shows up an all aspects of our lives.
We are disconnected in our language. While most people realize that humans are animals (and, more specificaly, mammals), our common use of the word animal is to refer to a non-human animal. We might go to a zoo, for example, to see the “animals” as if we aren’t surrounded by other animals all the time.
The disconnect is in our shelter. Don’t get me wrong, I love my thermostat, but it is often shocking to be to step outside and discover how warm or cold it is on a given day. I actually have no idea what is going on out in the world until I step outside my house.
The disconnect is on our food. While many students of mine have gardens at home or at school, many more don’t. Regardless of whether you are an omnivore, a vegetarian, or a vegan many people just don’t have a connection to their food source. Meanwhile, we are surrounded by wild plant food that most people are afraid to eat because they haven’t had the chance to learn to identify and harvest it safely.
The disconnect is in our transportation. It often amazes me to take a walk along streets that I often drive on. The slower pace forces me to notice so much more and it reminds me how much I am unaware of while driving.
The disconnect is in our water source. With clean, unlimited water avaiable to us on demand almost anywhere we go it is easy to forget where it comes from. Think about whether you can trace you water supply from precipitation to your tap? Can you trace it from your drain back to the ocean? Hiking in the desert a few years back really taught me the value of clean water and I try to be mindful of that every day.
I could go on but I think you get the point. We have successfully removed ourselves from nature so completely that we mostly value it only for its aesthetic properties. The prime example of this is the concept of Wilderness. We designate certain areas as “Wilderness” and define those areas as a “natural environment on Earth that has not been significantly modified by human activity”. While nature certainly has a great aesthetic value, only caring about protecting our views is selling it short in a tremendous way. We definitely need these Wilderness areas. But, at the same time, they strongly reinforce the idea that “humans” are separate from “nature”.
In light of all this, we are working hard to help young people rediscover that they are nature. We are working to create a new cultural current that sees humans as part of nature. If we are nature then it will always be in our self-interest to protect nature.
To inspire that connection, our programs are focused on real, experiential, and interactive learning. You will almost never see one of our instructors simply pointing things out and naming them. Instead, we try to tap into our students natural curiosity to get them to experience new things or experience old things in new ways. We also encourage students to frequently explore the “edges” of their confort zone and find out where those need to be pushed. This is not the same thing as pushing kids to try things. Every student has a different edge. For many students, pushing their edges might mean just getting comfortable sitting directly on the 
ground instead of in a chair. For others pushing their edges might mean getting camouflaged with mud and leaves. For more advanced students it might mean spending the night in a primitive shelter that was built with their own hands.
One of the things that is special about Whole Earth Nature School is our completely place-based model. Many camps depend on field trips and guest instructors to keep kids occupied and entertained during a camp. There is nothing wrong with that. However, I have had people who run those kind of camps remark how unusual it is that we run most of our camps completely at one location and with almost no props, toys, or guest instructors. In fact, 99% of the tools we use to run camps come directly from the land where we are operating and return back there when we leave. All we usually carry at camp is a few bandannas and a first aid kit. Nature provides all the inspiration that we need.
We also strive to teach kids real skills that are age appropriate. Examples might be edible and medicinal plants, tracking, fire making, archery, or carving and knife safety, depending on the age group. On days that we have practiced carving with kids I have had parents (approvingly) remark that there aren’t any other camps around that would encourage kids to bring “weapons” to camp. I had to respectfully remind that parent that we don’t encourage kids to bring “weapons” either. We are very clear that knives are not weapons, they are tools. Anyone who acts therwise isn’t going to be a part of our camp. However, the parent’s point remans the same. There are sadly few programs out there that still teach knife safety. And I am grateful for the few that still do.
Our students thrive on this interactive learning model. Last year I was helping some teenage students butcher their first rabbits for food. After receiving the instructions, I could see that they were hesitant to begin. This was a completely new experience for them. However, once we helped them get started they were completely excited about the experience they were having. They were talking all about how you read about things like lungs and kidneys but that they had never had the chance to actually see one. It was really inspiring to me to see those kids get connected to their own food in that way. Those same kids were really grateful for that food later in the week when they took it with them as jerky to keep themselves fed while practicing their survival skills on an overnight campout.
Those kids are well on the way to overcoming their cultural disconnetion from nature. One of my favorite things is seeing the growth of students that have been coming to our camps for several years. They go through a complete transformation in their relationship to nature. That’s what we are trying to achieve. We are trying to help kids travel from that place where nature is outside of us to a place where nature IS us. If you come to our programs our goal will be to help you discover you’re nature.
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