Progress Report

June 3, 2025

We are making great progress on developing an outcomes survey for fifth and sixth grade participants of Outdoor School programming in Washington! Following the Outcomes Development Workshop held in January, we developed a suite of draft outcomes and associated measures. These were sent out to workshop participants and other engaged stakeholders to provide further feedback. We then revised these outcomes and drafted a pilot survey.

View the pilot outcomes and measures

This survey is being pilot tested with five Outdoor Schools in Washington. A big THANK YOU to these organizations for participating in the pilot:

We are eagerly awaiting the remaining pilot test data and plan to have a finalized participant outcomes survey for implementation in Fall 2025. Check back soon as this survey will be made publicly available for broader use.

In a wooded area, concrete stairs and wooden railings lead to cabins along a lake with a swimming dock and diving board

Groups of young students crouched down around 5 gallon buckets along a shore, a person wearing a staff shirt looks on

Jan. 30, 2025

We had an amazing time meeting and learning with engaged stakeholders at the Washington Outdoor Schools Outcomes Development Workshop, hosted in Carnation, WA at Camp River Ranch on January 16th-17th, 2025. This 2-day workshop had 39 participants representing Outdoor Schools, public schools, various engaged organizations such as the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), the Washington School Principals Education Foundation (WSPEF), and others. We focused on identifying and refining a suite of outcomes that Outdoor Schools in Washington are aspiring to achieve with their 5th-6th grade student participants. The workshop was informed by the results of a state-wide survey effort to elicit initial ideas for these student outcomes. After the meeting, the research team further refined the ideas generated at the meeting and developed a draft of the outcomes we intend to measure in the upcoming evaluation effort. If you are interested in providing feedback on these draft outcomes, please complete this survey by February 14th, 2025.

Thanks to all who have been engaged thus far, and we look forward to the continued partnership!

A group of over 30 people stand on a floating dock in a lake cove.

Dec. 12, 2024

In November, we sent out an invitation to over 2,000 stakeholder contacts to respond to a survey eliciting opinions on the outcomes that Outdoor Schools should achieve for fifth and sixth grade participants. We have now closed the survey and begun to analyze the data in preparation for the in-person outcomes development workshop in Carnation, WA, January 16-17, 2025.

In total, we received 512 valid responses. Sixty-two percent of respondent were affiliated with public schools in Washington (i.e., principals, administrators, and teachers); 19% were affiliated with Outdoor Schools (i.e., directors, managers, coordinators, educators), and the remaining 28% were other identified stakeholders including employees of local education associations, foundations, universities and agencies, as well as parents of fifth and sixth grade students.

The results of this survey will form the foundation of our discussions during the January outcomes development workshop. Stay tuned for a debrief of the workshop and the resulting identified participant outcomes.