Each day at EMS, except Wednesdays, began with Morning Meeting. This is a time for the School Community to gather, hear speakers and announcements, sing songs, make presentations and share experiences.

Wednesday is reserved for "Start Your Day with Art" when students spend the first hour of the day participating in an "art" class led by members of the EMS community. Art is broadly defined and has included classes in watercolors, beading, quilting, robotic art, acting, comedy improvisation and photography. These classes are ever evolving, like EMS, and the class offerings change each term.

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays students attend Writers Workshop, Math, Spanish and Humanities classes. Tuesdays and Thursdays are for environmental core, which includes fieldwork, science lab, horticulture and service learning. The core classes are mixed age classes while Math, Spanish and Site Monitoring are grade level specific. Students have one hour of Physical Education a week.

Each year the curriculum is based around one of three themes - mountains, rivers and forests.

Curriculum Highlights for the year of the Mountain includes:

Geology
Geology of the Pacific Northwest
Archaeology
Physical and Cultural Geography
World Cultures
International Conflict
The Nature of Conflict
Nature Journaling
Heroes
Marine Biology
Wildlife Tours
Martin Luther King Day of Service Projects
Park Stewardship Projects
World Music / International Dance

Copyright 2002 - 2004 by The Environmental School

Last Updated on Sunday, June 6, 2004 9:38

E-mail Sarah Taylor shtaylor@pps.k12.or.us with comments on this Web site.