ArtODS

Art is a lot of things, but ODS stands for Multnomah Education Service District’s Outdoor School program. You might be wondering, “What is Outdoor School?” In the last 45 years, Outdoor School has provided hands-on, place-based education in a residential community to 300,000 sixth graders in this region. Traditionally, Outdoor School brings four sixth grade classes from different parts of Multnomah County to a site in the outdoors, where they learn, live, work, eat, and play together for a week. High school Student Leaders volunteer to give a week of their lives as the students’ field study instructors and cabin leaders. A staff of 12 mentor these Student Leaders in their teaching and leadership, and ensure that students are safe and well cared for. In each week of Outdoor School we see students who discover that they are smart and can be successful in science, who socially transform before their peers’ and teachers’ eyes, and who love their experience so much they can’t wait to return in four years to give it to another group of children. As Student Leaders, high school students gain countless skills and strengths in their practice with youth. The program has inspired generations of leaders and educators.  MESD Outdoor School is outstanding for many reasons, but one of its core strengths is that it is designed for everyone in the region to experience. It has become a rite of passage for anyone who has grown up in Multnomah County. However, as school districts have faced enormous funding challenges in recent years, this fall the only districts that are able to participate are Portland Public Schools and Gresham-Barlow. These two districts are sending their sixth grade classes for a three day, two night field science experience. My name is Jennifer Starkey, or Jingo at Outdoor School. I got to go to Howard ODS as a sixth grader in 1993, and was a Student Leader at Sandy River ODS from 1998-2000. I got to return to Howard and work as a Plants Field Instructor from 2007 to 2009. My experience teaching at Howard helped me decide to pursue a Masters of Arts in Teaching from Lewis & Clark in secondary arts education. In Fall 2010, I chose to return to Howard to serve as a Program Leader. That session, I was introduced to Hannah Jickling, a practicing artist from PSU’s Art and Social Practice program who was interested in what happens at ODS. In collaboration with Dan “Teal” Prince, the Outdoor School Coordinator, and Kim Silva, Development Director of Friends of Outdoor School, we recognized the potential of incorporating the arts into Outdoor School’s program. Through the winter, we developed a plan and applied for funding to help make it happen. Thanks to the generosity and support of Friends of Outdoor School, the Gray Family Fund, the Wieden Family Public Fund, and The Starseed Foundation, we are implementing a pilot project at Howard this fall called ArtODS. ArtODS will be facilitated by Artist in Residence Hannah Jickling and myself. Caldera Arts, a non-profit organization that mentors low-income youth in Portland and Central Oregon with the arts, will work with us to give us support, equipment, training, and consultation. I will be helping Howard’s four Field Instructors create lessons that use art to support science instruction, and helping its six Program Leaders with using creativity in community building activities. Hannah will focus on place based art-making, outdoor architecture, and bringing contemporary art practice to sixth grade and high school students during their stay at Howard. ArtODS will allow us to find out some of the answers to these questions: What if we could turn Weather into a tv show? What if we could incorporate creative writing into cabin time? What if we could build forts in the forest? What if we had a photography station? What if we turned this lesson into a video? What if every cabin got their own art materials? What if the experience of Outdoor School was already a giant art project anyway? What if students got to find out that they are artists, even though they thought they couldn’t draw? One of our primary goals is to help students experience art outside of the classroom and gain practice with multiple forms of media, which might include writing, performance, mapmaking, song, video, dance, photography, drawing, installation, sculpture, or any combination of those things. Authentic application of these things in the field, in the community, and with a practicing artist will offer a chance to expand students’ understanding of what art can be. We aim to help Howard’s experienced, talented staff explore and develop lessons that they might not have had time or resources to implement otherwise. We hope to make creative thinking another dimension of our curriculum so we can make science and friendship even more accessible to students, replicable at all sites, as another asset of this long-standing program. I go on site with Hannah and the rest of Howard staff tomorrow! I hope you follow us on our ArtODS journey!