Webinars

Willamette Partnership’s Oregon Health & Outdoors Initiative partnered with outdoor early childhood experts across the country to develop the "Outdoor Preschool Policy Action Framework." The framework helps advocates — from parents, teachers, and administrators to elected officials — find a pathway to make outdoor preschool available to all. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to this work, so this resource identifies many potential options you can use to start moving your state along the pathway to make outdoor preschools available to everyone!

For years, Professor Julie Ernst at the University of Minnesota Duluth has been exploring how nature preschools affect children's curiosity, creativity, executive function skills, and more. In this forum, Julie shares her research and tools she has developed that help make the case for nature-based education.

In July 2020, the Inside-Outside advisory group collaborated to write a position statement on outdoor learning. This position statement quickly gained the attention of tens of thousands of people interested in how schools can transition learning outdoors as a way to safely reopen in the fall. During NatStart's Nature-Based Early Learning Virtual Conference, Inside-Outside organized a panel of experts—including outdoor educators, administrators, and a pediatrician—to further discuss the benefits and opportunities of outdoor learning during this uncertain time.

The state of Washington took a significant step forward in October 2019 when it became the first state in the US to license preschools that operate entirely outdoors. This webinar features the Outdoor Preschool Pilot Program in Washington state.

The Natural Start Alliance in collaboration with the Children and Nature Network, offer valuable evidence and practice-based information to make the case for affirming the voices, experiences and cultural ways of knowing of our youngest participants in nature-based education in this webinar. Recording available.

What does nature-based learning look like in public K-3 classrooms across North America?
This webinar features three expert perspectives on incorporating regular and repeated outdoor experiences in traditional school settings.