Outdoor Education at Carver Elementary

2026-2027

Sarah Kalinowsky, RHES Outdoor Educator: skalinowsky@bryan.k12.ga.us
Kari Wilcher, Carver Outdoor Educator: kwilcher@bryan.k12.ga.us

During the 2026-2027 school year, Richmond Hill Elementary (grades 2-3) and Carver Elementary (grades 4-5) will focus their Outdoor Education program on helping students build meaningful connections with nature through exploration, discovery, and storytelling. As a registered #GenerationRestoration School with the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE), RHES+Carver is part of a global effort to inspire young people to care for the natural world through hands-on experiences. Students will spend time outdoors observing wildlife, exploring habitats, and documenting the plants and animals that share their schoolyard. Their discoveries will expand the RHES+Carver Wildlife Portrait Gallery and a campus biodiversity map that records what species are found, where they live, and what they reveal about the health of our local ecosystem. Building on the success of our award-winning Seeds of Stewardship initiative, recognized through the Georgia GOLD Grant, the Georgia DNR Conservation Teacher of the Year Grant, and National Wildlife Federation Eco-Schools Green Flag certification, students will continue restoring habitat, increasing biodiversity, and developing a lifelong sense of stewardship. By encouraging curiosity, careful observation, and personal encounters with nature, the program helps children see their schoolyard as a place worth exploring, understanding, and protecting.

Our Outdoor Education program is grounded in
Student-Led, Experiential, Phenomena-Based, Place-Based, Project-Based, and Problem-Based Pedagogy.

Our purpose is to connect children to nature through schoolyard biodiversity exploration and stewardship.

We develop the mind of a scientist and the heart of a steward by helping students discover what lives here, understand how living things interact with their environment, and take meaningful action to care for the ecosystems they study.

View RHES+Carver Outdoor Ed Master Plan

NAAEE Guidelines for Excellence in Environmental Education

Read About Our Eco-Code

"If students are to understand how professional scientists function in their workplaces, they must have the opportunity for hands-on experience in the forests, wetlands, coastal regions, and watersheds in which scientists conduct research." -AFWA, The North American Conservation Education Strategy: State Science Standards and K-12 Field Science Practice

OVERARCHING YEAR-LONG PROJECTS: SHARING OUR ECO-STORY

Essential Question

How can documenting biodiversity through photographs and sound recordings help us understand, monitor, and protect our schoolyard ecosystem?

Species Documentation Through Photography And Sound Recording

Our leading project this year is a year-long, student-led stewardship action project called The Wildlife Portrait Gallery of Dr. GW Carver Elementary. Inspired by National Geographic's PhotoARK, photographer Joel Sartore, students will publish their species photography through schoolwide displays and publications.

Carver's Wildlife Portrait Gallery

BIOLOGICAL INVENTORY

Goal: Find and document 600 different kinds of plants, animals, fungi, and other living things on our campus while sharing our discoveries to help scientists learn more about nature.

Carver Life List

NATURE CONNECTION

Goal: Connect kids to nature while increasing the biodiversity of our schoolyard.

FOREST LAB

Goal: Discover the trees in our school forest and the wildlife that depends on them. We will learn to identify our trees, map where they grow, and share what we discover with scientists while helping our forest become a certified arboretum.

Lichens and SO2

SOIL LAB

Goal: Explore the soil beneath our feet to discover what makes a healthy forest. We will investigate our soil, learn how it helps plants and animals thrive, and share our discoveries with scientists

Our Soil Textbook

Our Soil Data

CHICKEN COOP + GARDENS

Goal: Explore the connections between our chickens, garden, soil, insects, and plants to discover how healthy ecosystems support life. We will investigate these relationships, care for our garden, and share our discoveries with scientists and our community.

AQUATIC MACROINVERTEBRATES + CRAYFISH

Goal: Investigate the hidden world beneath the water's surface to discover the crayfish and aquatic macroinvertebrates that call our schoolyard home. We will identify species, monitor freshwater habitats, and use our discoveries to help protect local streams and wetlands. We will collect data, identify species, and share our findings with scientists.

Map Making

Goal: Discover and document the plants and animals that live on our campus by recording what they look like, where they live, and where we find them. We will create a map of our observations to learn which species live at our school, where they are found, how their populations change over time, and how we can help protect their habitats.

Carver + RHES

“The most powerful science learning takes place when students observe, explore, and investigate their own schoolyard ecosystems.”-NSTA – Outdoor Science Instruction: Making It Work

#GenerationRestoration

Essential Question

How can elementary students use real scientific research to restore wetlands, increase biodiversity, and improve the health of our schoolyard ecosystem in the Ogeechee River Basin?

For the 26-27 school year, RHES+Carver is a registered #GenerationRestoration School.

The Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE), in partnership with the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, is supporting schools worldwide to take meaningful action for nature. By becoming a #GenerationRestoration School, RHES+Carver will join a global effort to stop and reverse ecosystem degradation, while gaining access to inspiring learning materials, hands-on activities and other opportunities for students and educators.

Our project, Seeds of Stewardship, is our action project for #GenerationRestoration.

The Seeds of Stewardship project centers on two primary goals: connecting children to nature and increasing biodiversity on campus through student-led habitat restoration. Every student at RHES+Carver (grades 2-5) participates in authentic, hands-on fieldwork as part of the school’s Outdoor Education program, which serves more than 1400 students each week across 50 acres of wetland, bioswale, and forest habitats within the Ogeechee River Basin.

Seeds of Stewardship is our 2025-26 National Wildlife Federation Eco-Schools Green Flag Action project.

Seeds of Stewardship is supported by the Department of Natural Resources Conservation Teacher of the Year Grant, TERN - Friends of Georgia's Nongame Wildlife, the Georgia GOLD Grant, the Garden Club of Richmond Hill with inkind donations from the Xerces Society, Coastal Wildscapes, the University of Georgia, and the Georgia Native Plant Society.

View Seeds of Stewardship

Read About Our Project on LEAF Global

Goal: Collect seeds from native plants and grow new habitats for wildlife. Together, we'll help create a schoolyard where more birds, butterflies, pollinators, and other native animals can find food, shelter, and places to live.

NATIVE HABITAT RESTORATION
HABITAT CERTIFICATION

NATIVE SEED COLLECTION

ADVOCACY

Goal: Use our voices to make a difference. We will write letters to community leaders to share why outdoor learning, our schoolyard, and the Ogeechee River watershed are important and how we can help care for the places we love.

Carver students write letters to our representatives to advocate for policies that impact outdoor learning, our schoolyard, and the Ogeechee River Basin. Student advocacy supports our National Wildlife Federation Eco-Schools Action Plan and is supported by the National Association of Environmental Education Guidelines of Excellence.