Outdoor Adventure Education
ELA, Social Science, Earth Science, and Writing Learned in the World's Largest Classroom
The Daniel Wright Wilderness Program
Building kindness, respect, and resilience in our students one adventure at a time.
"The tendency nowadays to wander in wildernesses is delightful to see. Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home."
-John Muir
Photo: Sierra Club founder John Muir and friend/fellow conservationist Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States
Go Outside and Play!
Childhood is meant to be spent outdoors. The DW Wilderness Program is designed to place a steady series of small, surmountable obstacles before students to develop their natural inclination towards discovery and adventure.
Perfect "bushcraft."
Students learn the skills of traditional technologies and how skills replace tools.
Practice "wildcraft."
What we call "survival" today was everyday life just a few generations ago here in North America, and is everyday life in many places today. Students connect with the inner "hunter-gatherer" as part of the program.
Make the real world your video game.
Forget "Red Dead Redemption." Students learn where the most amazing wilderness can be seen, and touched, and breathed.
Wait, it's how close?
Students discover amazing adventures in their own back yards.
Have a Blast in the Rain!
Students learn to live the hiker's motto: there is no bad weather, only bad gear.
Never Get Lost Again (Unless You Want To)
Study land navigation, celestial navigation, map reading, and orienteering techniques.
Can't I Just Learn All This on my iPad?
Glad you asked. The DW Wilderness Program is an "experiental educational vehicle," which is just a fancypants way of saying it provides opportunities for our students to...
Experiment in the Great Laboratory of Nature.
Botany, Zoology, Astronomy, Geology, Meteorology, Geography, Trigonometry, Cartography, History.
What do you want to learn today?
Pack for Adventure Correctly
Develop an understanding of the difference between what you want, and what you really need.
Plan an Adventure Correctly
The skills of planning, preparation, and communication are vital to success every day of our lives. Develop those skills and help others develop them alongside you.
Read (and Maybe Write) a Great Adventure Story
Hemingway, London, Krakauer, Paulsen, Kipling, Junger, and...you?
Pitch and Break Camp Correctly
How to do the most with what you have where you are and do it well: this is the key to confidence.
Study the History of our Local Native Peoples
Master Fire
Humans' first technology. Master how to make it, master how to use it, master how to protect the wild from damage.
Layer for Weather Conditions Correctly
Yes, your mom was absolutely right to tell you to put on something warmer.
Gain a Perspective
Understand where we are, and where we are headed.
Use a Compass Correctly
Practice Cooking (and eating) outside
Appreciate Our Neighbors
A recent study claims only 4% of the world's mammals are wild. Commune with that small percentage as our classes explore the vast offerings that surround our wilderness at DW: deer, coyote, fox, beavers, opossum, badgers, weasels, woodchucks, chipmunks, voles, mink, and bobcats (yikes!)
And, of course, squirrels. An Ode to Squirrels
(On second thought, maybe we'll commune with the bobcats from a safe distance.)
Travel Near for Adventure
The Great Chicago Through-Hike allows beginners to get their feet wet hiking and backpacking and still be home for dinner. Or maybe the start of the school year.
20 Days, 200 Miles On the Trail...in Chicagoland
And Travel Not-Too-Far
The DW Wilderness Program prepares its students to -on their own or with family or even participating in other outdoor programs- take full advantage of the Midwest's finest nature sites. Our classes in trip planning and preparation take into account logistics, expenditures, risk assessment, emergency preparedness, as well as researching, to the most minute details, how to travel into the backcountry. Even if the backcountry is only a few minutes away.
Perfect the Practice of Leave No Trace
Nature belongs to everyone and every living thing. Become a steward of the environment by learning and practicing the principles of Leave No Trace and do your part to save the world.
Now, Go Outside and Study!
The world is an amazing classroom: learn from it, and learn how to teach others to love it and care for it as well.