Sierra Outdoor School

Recent research has shed light on the importance of play. Play is not just important for children, but people of all ages. Sierra Outdoor School provides opportunities for students to play on the high ropes course What Is Play? Play is any activity that is done for its own sake, apparently purposeless. It has inherent attraction and frees you from a sense of time and consciousness of self. Play can produce surprise, pleasure, and new knowledge.  How Do We Play? Just as people learn in different ways, people also have different styles of playing. Read the following descriptions to learn your play personality. You may find one play personality describes you perfectly, or you may be a combination of two or more personalities.  The Joker-- This play personality is the classic class clown. They use social strategies to make other people laugh.  The Kinesthete-- This player likes to move. They may play athletic games, but competition is not their main...

The winter here at Sierra Outdoor School has been a wet one so far, as El Niño visits California this year. As several of our school groups have been here spending time learning outside in all sorts of weather conditions, we decided to share some information about how different types of precipitation are formed. The most common types of winter precipitation are those that most people can name: rain, freezing rain, sleet, and snow. What many people are unaware of is that all winter precipitation begins as ice or snow crystals up in the cold cloud layer. If these crystals get big enough that the air rising from below can no longer support them against gravity, they begin to fall as precipitation. What they are by the time they reach the ground depends upon the air temperatures they encounter on the way down. The four main types of winter precipitation. Source: www.weather.gov Rain, for example, begins as those ice or snow crystals and falls into a layer of air that is above ...

Visitors coming to the Sierra Outdoor School this year will notice something different on the drive in: a wildfire scar along a section of Old Oak Ranch Road from the Oak Fire. On September 8th two fires started along Big Hill Road and quickly burned up hill and joined together. The fire reached Old Oak Ranch Road before the fire was contained about half a mile away from the school. The fire burned 108 acres. Oak Fire as seen from Sonora.  photo mymotherlode.com Steve Leontic Oak Fire near Old Oak Ranch Road.  Photo mymotherlode.com Besides the quick response of local firefighters and aircraft, a recently completed fuel break played a crucial role in slowing progression of the fire and limiting its spread. Work on the two-mile long, 300-foot wide shaded fuel break was started in September 2014 and finished that spring. The goal of this project was to provide fire protection to the local area and improve forest health. Fuel breaks will not st...

SOS has been under construction for a few years now, and to our excitement the last building is almost complete! The construction progress has been long but extremely successful. We first received a new storage building, four residential houses, the Barn Classroom Building, and the Lower Education Classroom Building; Now the Upper Education Building is slated to be completed and in use by mid-January. Here are a few pictures to show how great it looks already! This is from Old Oak Ranch Road side. The front entrance is just to the left.  Just like the Barn Classroom Building we will have a great covered patio space. Another view of patio and front of the building to the right. A rear view from the dining hall side.  Rear view from Old Oak Ranch Road side.  The new building will have three classrooms, a museum space, a staff office, two sets of bathrooms, and a reception area, called the Lizard Lounge, which will be used as a place for the chap...

Have you noticed any trees with browning foliage in your area? When looking up towards Sierra Outdoor School from the town of Sonora, the hillsides are dotted with brown. Sometimes this color is from deciduous leaves preparing to drop from trees like California buckeye and black oak, however this year there is significantly more brown on the hillsides. As you drive up to the school you see that the brown color is from ponderosa pine trees that have died over this summer. How did this happen? What can be done about it? Is this a fire risk? After four successive years of drought, these trees have suffered and have been unable to respond normally to environmental stresses. One thing that can stress the trees are bark beetles. These insects lay eggs underneath the bark and the larvae feed on the wood. A healthy tree responds to a bark beetle attack by filling the hole with a thick, sticky, fluid called pitch. When the trees are under water stress, as they have been due to this drought...

“And, under the trees, I saw Brown Bar-ba-loots frisking about in their Bar-ba-loot suits as they played in the shade and ate Truffula Fruits.” While Bar-ba-loots and Truffula Fruits only exist on the pages of The Lorax , they help illustrate some very real ecological and economic principles. Children’s storybooks provide a fun and visually tantalizing way to take abstract concepts and bring them to life through storytelling. Books can also be a great way for students to teach themselves independently. Here are some storybooks we use here at Sierra Outdoor School: The Wolves Are Back by Jean Craighead George This book tells the real-life story of the persecution and near-extinction of wolves in Yellowstone National Park and the subsequent ecological imbalance that occurs as a result of their absence. The story describes the wolf reintroduction program, the rise in wolf population numbers and the ecological balance that returns. The story is useful in explaining the ro...

Our 2015-16 Naturalist Interns arrived about a month and half ago! They have just spent most of the month of August training and getting ready for school groups to arrive. We are super excited to have them join our team. If you are interested in what last year's interns are doing now, check out our previous blog. You are welcome to visit our Facebook page as well, to see updates and photos of how the last month of preparation and this school year has been going! Andrew is currently a student at Fresno State University studying Recreation Administration.  He has lived in Fresno, CA most of his life and his natural habitat is outside.  He has worked as a white water river guide and a social media consultant at a mountain guiding company in southern Yosemite.  A few of his hobbies include photography, guitar, hiking, long boarding, and hammocking. Andrew came to SOS as a student, and is excited to be returning to SOS as an Intern so he can give kids the same great expe...