The Importance of Experience Caroline Stahl

On a rainy October afternoon, I crouched before a pile of twigs, anxiously trying to start a fire. As I blew on the small flame, the words of Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” filled my ears. I was in English class at Conserve School, a semester program focused on outdoor education. After the fire began to burn consistently, my classmates and I enjoyed the heat it provided and were able to fully appreciate London’s story of an unprepared man in the Yukon wilderness who froze to death after he failed to build a fire.

This is just one example of the education I experienced at Conserve School. Many of my classes were taught outside, and were connected to nature and conservation. In history, we recreated the journeys of Lewis and Clark and Ernest Shackleton. Performing water quality experiments and biodiversity surveys in nearby lakes during environmental science class taught me the inner-workings of the environment that surrounded me. This approach linked my education to the world at large.

If I were appointed interim-principal of my high school in Missoula, I would give students the opportunity to learn in outdoor classrooms, perhaps along the banks of the Clark Fork River or on the side of Mount Jumbo. I imagine an...