Outdoor & Nature-Based Education
Portland-area schools where the natural world shapes how kids learn, from fully outdoor forest schools to classroom-based programs with an environmental focus.
"When truly present in nature, we do use all our senses at the same time, which is the optimum state of learning."
The schools
9 schoolsA 1–2 day per week forest school where multi-age cohorts meet at Whitaker Ponds for nature-based, play-led learning — designed to complement homeschool or public school enrollment.
A nonprofit PK-5 forest school where students spend nearly the entire day outdoors on 128 acres, grouped by skill level rather than grade and mixed across ages for ancestral-skills days like fire-building and foraging.
A full-day outdoor microschool where one mixed-age cohort learns in the natural world rather than a classroom, with self-paced work blocks and protected daily free play.
A progressive micro-school in Southeast Portland built around full-time outdoor learning, where small mixed-age groups explore science, art, and literacy in the field.
No building, no classroom walls. An outdoor program for 2.5-10yr olds where children spend every class day in public parks in all weather, in a program that deliberately keeps play "as safe as necessary" rather than "as safe as possible."
A Friday-only outdoor program for grades 1–8 with no fixed campus: the group meets at a different wild place each week, from Powell Butte to the Sandy River Delta, carrying a Waldorf rhythm of circle, song, and story into the field in all weather.
A weekly outdoor homeschool day where kids bus from SE or W Portland to a 351-acre Sandy wilderness camp, a farm, and local waters for archery, survival skills, and fishing.
A one-day-a-week outdoor program merging wilderness survival skills with live-action role-play quests — archery, navigation, and woodcraft.
Part-week forest and farm school for ages 3–16, split between a 40-acre Hillsboro forest and a Gales Creek working farm with cows, hogs, and chickens.
Classrooms with an outdoor habit
15 schoolsA private K–8 on a 21-acre wooded campus, with mixed-age project studios and a preparatory program that blends outdoor ecology, arts, and rigorous academics.
A K-8 microschool operating on Camp Tilikum's 93-acre grounds, with daily access to hiking trails, a 15-acre lake, and a challenge/ropes course for hands-on outdoor learning.
A Catholic Montessori PK–8 on a 10-acre campus where outdoor learning builds year over year, from an aquaponics greenhouse and hands-on composting, to overnight Earth Experience trips into Northwest wilderness for elementary students and a multi-week Residential Experience for middle schoolers.
A 5-acre Vancouver, WA campus built around a working garden, wetland, and forest, with 65+ minutes of daily recess and regular walking field trips to WSU Vancouver.
A K-12 alternative school where the Expeditionary Learning model (EL) treats Portland itself as curriculum. Field trips to museums, cultural sites, and community organizations are woven into interdisciplinary units rather than treated as extras, and internships and service learning give high schoolers real-world contact hours. The outdoor learning here is urban, not wilderness, but it is structural and frequent, not occasional.
A private PK-6 where every classroom opens through a glass wall onto its own garden and outdoor extension, with a 1/4-acre botanical garden, 1/2 mile of hiking, and an Outdoor Educator on staff across 6 wooded acres.
A PK–8 on 59 wooded acres with two wetlands, nature trails, a challenge course, and a greenhouse, where a Director of Experiential Education runs the outdoor program and every grade from 3 onward takes an annual overnight trip, from the Oregon coast in grade 4 to Olympic National Park in grade 7.
An Episcopal college prep where two wetland areas, nature trails, a greenhouse, and a challenge ropes course sit on 59 wooded acres that science classes use as field sites. The Experiential Education program extends that off campus through Winterim and trips like marine science fieldwork at OSU's Hatfield Marine Science Center.
A progressive private 6–12 where monthly outdoor education trips take students caving, rock climbing, cross-country skiing, and cycling, alongside Outdoor School, Camp Tapawingo, and an annual all-school camping trip. The rock climbing team is coached by a teacher holding AMGA Single Pitch Instructor and Wilderness First Responder certifications.
A tuition-free public option program for grades 6-8 where environmental science anchors the whole curriculum, with almost weekly site visits into regional ecosystems and service learning for community partners.
A tuition-free public charter on Sauvie Island where place-based education turns the surrounding farms, river, and wildlife refuge into the K–8 classroom.
A tuition-free K–8 charter built on place-based environmental science, with outdoor fieldwork and school gardens in a rural setting.
Tuition-free PPS K–8 focus option where middle schoolers spend Thursdays on field studies and each grade takes a spring marine biology overnight, from 3 days in Newport to a week at Olympic National Park and Catalina Island.
A two-campus Montessori program with AMI-certified Guides. Middle schoolers learn on 12 acres along Kellogg Creek, tending goats and blueberries and taking a 3-night fall expedition; younger students go outside daily in all weather.
A tuition-free public charter built on place-based education, connecting K–8 students to Portland's ecology, civic life, and waterways.
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