Place-Based Rural Learning Collaboratory

The Place-Based Rural Learning Collaboratory launched in 2022 and is made possible in large part through funding support from the Gray Family Foundation. It is a small statewide group of teachers and community partners collaborating to learn together and improve connections between place-based initiatives on rural school campuses and local Tribal nations. In person field trips are open all educators while the online learning community meets monthly during the school year as a cohesive group sharing ideas, learnings, and takeaways from the virtual 4 Seasons of Indigenous Learning series that features Indigenous Knowledge holders of a variety of backgrounds.

Click here for Resources Library we are using in our colearning!

Resource to Check out From 11/13/2025 Jesse Wente references the 94 calls to action with a focus on the 43 Legacy Actions within Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Jesse refers to these as actions to do now. Although this is document from Canada, it is useful to anyone interested in knowing more about Truth and Reconciliation. Jesse tells us that this phrase is for NonNative folks - there isn't a part of this that is a NEW truth to Indigenous folks. Indigenous folks are experts in reconciling these truths daily over the course of their entire lives.

It is fundamentally a healing process and is separate from the healing process that Indigenous communities are doing.

First: Telling of the Truth

Second: The Acceptance of the Truth - so that we can move onto the next stage of healing.

This act is the 2nd or 3rd opinion in this process.

He emphasizes the importance of Truth AND Reconciliation - these need to be together not separate.

Treatment for what ails.

No nation has resurrected languages that it has sought to destroy. Understanding of this place is held in these languages.

BMX metaphor - we are gonna ride that bike for a bit to reconnect but we've all ridden bikes and it won't take us long and our discussion will be maybe the bike should have more than one seat....

Canadians not wanting to be Americans so maybe this is a new opportunity.

Jesse's thoughts on decolonization: institutions behaving better and making them more safe for all communities. Western society is a culture of doing. It places value of you on your doing of things that contribute to the economy.

We call ourselves the human beings. What if we organized society around people being instead of doing. Example of building and ramp.

Colonialism seeks to keep us strangers.

'25-'26 Presentation Schedule Four Seasons of Indigenous Learning

All Thursdays from 4pm-5pm PST - Click on Each Date Below to Learn More About Presenters

'24-'25 School Year Virtual Conversations

This year the virtual community of 16 Oregon educators that came together monthly to interactively connect around the resources from the 4 Seasons of Indigenous Learning Series were from Clatsop, Coos, Crook, Curry, Deschutes, Douglas, Jackson, Klamath, and Lake. See image for the schedule of the sessions that we watched and learned from during the school year.

Teachers also came together in these monthly Zooms to access other online resources created by Oregon's 9 Federally Recognized Tribes, Washington's 29 Federally Recognized Tribes, the National Museum of the American Indian, the Chinook Nation, and other Tribal Organizations. Check out our curated pages here and here for some of these resources.

Teacher Takeaways from participating in the statewide interactive Zoom with other educators:

"An amazing feeling of being connected to and part of a fabulous community of people that genuinely care about things that are exciting and inspiring to me, too! I didn't expect this feeling of connection and am humbled by how welcoming everyone is and how willing they are to share their knowledge. " - Eastern Oregon Teacher

These are the presenters each month from the 4 Seasons of Indigenous Learning Program.

2024-2025 School Year Field Trips to Tribal Museums

May 2025 - Eastern Oregon

A team of 8 teachers from Pendleton, Baker, and Stanfield joined for our May field trip to Tamástslikt Cultural Institute of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. Thank you to education and interpretation specialist Jesse Bird who always gives a great tour. Also special thanks to Beau Welch, an enrolled member of the CTUIR who joined our tour. Our day was spent connecting with each other around place utilizing the Plant Teaching resources from the GRuB curriculum before heading in the exhihits to learn more about the Nine Essential Understandings of Native Americans in Oregon through the history and stories shared by the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in their permanent exhibit We Were, We Are, We Will Be and their temporary exhibit in partnership with Whitman College: Picturing Family: Métis Life in the Walla Walla Valley.

To learn more about the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation head to the Rural STEAM Leadership CTUIR resource library for resources created by the tribe.

October 2024 - Central Oregon

We had a group of 12 educators from Fossil, Prairie City, Redmond, Terrebonne, Lebanon, Coos Bay, Klamath Falls, Black Butte, Sisters, and Wallowa come together on Saturday October 5th in Central Oregon. Half of the day was spent diving deeper into the 9 Essential Understanding of Native Americans in Oregon by utilizing the exhibits at the Museum at Warm Springs of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs. Then the group headed to Terrebonne Community School to learn more about the place-based initiative on that campus led by 1st grade teacher and Rural STEAM Leadership Network Learning Facilitator Jennifer Callahan.

South Coast Summer 2024 Adventures - Educator Field Trips

A group of 22 teachers from Coos Bay, North Bend, Reedsport, Rainier, Coquille, Florence, and Redmond came together to learn more about local outdoor teaching spaces and what it mean to include Native Voice in place-based teaching. This Saturday workshop was cofacilitated by Edward Nichols from North Bay Elementary and Christina Geierman from North Bend High School.

North Bay Elementary: North Bay Elementary teacher Edward Nichols and North Bend High School science teacher Christina Geierman share their stories of taking K-12 students outdoors and their experience participating on the curriculum development team of the Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians.

Coos History Museum: We headed inside after our outdoor explorations to learn more about the Nine Essential Understandings of Native Americans in Oregon at the Coos History Museum's exhibit Reclaiming Our Words: Tribal Language on the South Coast

We asked questions such as: When do we know we are hearing from a curator? When do we know we are hearing from a Native Collaborator? Who are we giving authority in these spaces and why/how?

Millicoma Marsh: Teachers take in the expansive views at Millicoma Marsh in Coos Bay and engage with interpretive signs to think about possibilities of partnering with local Tribal Nations in developing their own signage for outdoor learning spaces on their campuses.

North Bay Elementary: The group take a minute to pose after hiking the North Bay School Community School Forest in North Bend. We were joined by Jim Grano, retired Mapleton science teacher who is now part of the Siuslaw Watershed Council. Jim has been instrumental in the huge-and neverending- project of removing invasive scotch broom throughout this school campus and the larger South Coast region.

NW Oregon April 2024 Adventures in Rainier, Kalama, and Kelso!

South Coast, January 2023: Lead Teacher Edward Nichols in conversation on a walk through the 70 acres of the North Bay Elementary School Community Forest with Jesse Beers of the Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians and Michelle Brix of Oregon's Tribal Attendance Promising Practices (also enrolled member of CTCLUSI)

Central Oregon, Fall 2022: Lead Teachers Jennifer Callahan and Kraelyn Christman taking their colleagues on an adventure on their Terrebonne Comunity School campus in Central Oregon to explore place-based possibilities together.

Conversations and Co-Learning: '22-'24

The Place-Based Rural Learning Collaboratory is a community of rural Oregon teachers seeking to improve connections between place-based teaching initiatives on their rural school campuses and local Tribal Nations. Participating teachers are currently going through their own professional and personal learning about Tribal History/Shared History to increase their competency and confidence in integrating this curriculum and Native Voice throughout their teaching practice. For the '23-'24 school year this includes participating in the Four Seasons of Indigenous Learning program curated by the Outdoor Learning Store. Grant funding also provides compensation for Tribal partners’ time to engage in conversations together with teachers on the land and at Tribally owned and operated institutions such as the Tamástslikt Cultural Institute (Spring 2024).

Together we are engaging in these initial conversations so that teachers across the state are more aware of and actively involved in learning more about what it means to live and teach on Native Land. We are also seeking to build authentic regional school-Tribal partnerships in the Place-Based Rural Learning Collaboratory so that teachers and schools can plan goals for their own unique structure of funding, interaction, collaboration, and professional learning.

Regional Lead Teachers '23-'24

Jennifer Callahan - First Grade Teacher

Terrebonne Community School (Redmond School District)

Christina Geierman - Science Teacher

North Bay High School (North Bend School School District)

Carrie Merino - Science Teacher

Rainier Jr/Sr High School (RainierSchool District)

Abbie Perrin - Fourth Grade Teacher

Ninety-One School (Canby School District)

Jocelyn Blevins - STEAM Teacher

Sisters Elementary School (Sisters School District)

Michelle Lusk - Preschool Teacher

UCAN Head Start (Roseburg, Oregon)

Brooke Armstrong - High School Teacher

Baker Web Academy (Baker School District)

Pia Alliende - District Librarian

Redmond School District

Heather Kapande - Teacher

Lighthouse School (Coos Bay School District)

Amber Cannon - Third Grade Teacher

Coquille Valley Elementary School (Coquille School District)

Melissa Harner - Fifth Grade Teacher

Powers Elementary School (Powers School District)

Edward Nichols - Third Grade Teacher

Coordinator of North Bay Elementary School Community Forest Initiative

North Bay Elementary (North Bend School School District)

Regional Lead Teachers '22-'23

Jennifer Callahan - First Grade Teacher

Terrebonne Community School (Redmond School District)

Kraelyn Christman - First Grade Teacher

Terrebonne Community School (Redmond School District)

Christina Geierman - Science Teacher

North Bay High School (North Bend School School District)

Carrie Merino - Science Teacher

Rainier Jr/Sr High School (RainierSchool District)

Edward Nichols - Third Grade Teacher

Coordinator of North Bay Elementary School Community Forest Initiative

North Bay Elementary (North Bend School School District)

Amy Schmid - Natural Resources Coordinator

Tillamook School District