For 28 Lancaster County educators, summer break has meant mucking around in Mill Creek, nature journaling in the Texter Mountain Preserve, and assessing plant growth at Penn State’s Southeast Agricultural Research and Extension Center.

These teachers are part of the Outdoor Learning Network Initiative, a three-day training program in its fourth year that aims to provide resources, networking, and field trips to develop outdoor learning skills for the county’s environmental educators.

“They get us outside, and then it gets us getting the kids outside,” said Lisa Hochreiter, an agricultural science teacher at Warwick High School in her third year with the training program.

The ability for teachers to return year after year is one of the strengths of the program, said Jim Hovan, a Conestoga Valley science teacher who is part of the OLNI leadership team and has attended all four years.

Veterans sharing perspective with newcomers creates a powerful networking effect, as does the mix of elementary, middle, and high school educators, Hovan said.

“We learn a lot from them, and they learn a lot from us,” Hovan said.

County teachers participate in Outdoor Learning Network Initiative [photos]

Ephrata Middle School science teachers Jenn Trout and Josh Haupt, who recently won a Conservation Educators Award from the Lancaster County Conservation District, helped facilitate this year’s OLNI training.

“For me, the highlight is all the various resources that are untapped for teachers,” Haupt said.

Trout offered her schoolyard assessment unit, in which students assess the health of their campus environment and then set improvement goals, as a model that can be adapted to any school setting.

“If you can’t go to a waterway, this is another outdoor experience that is real for your students,” Trout said.

All of the OLNI lessons emphasize taking action, Hochreiter said, explaining that the training has inspired streamside tree plantings and schoolyard garden creation. The inclusion of trips to agricultural sites is especially important for the many teachers who are not familiar with the field, she said.

As the group began its tour of the site’s flower trials and row crop research plots, Hovan echoed Hochreiter’s enthusiasm for the visit to the Southeast Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Rapho Township.

“I’m like sucking all this in,” Hovan said. “It’s so cool.”

Growing the network

Lancaster County’s Outdoor Learning Network Initiative began in 2020 with an initial three-year grant from the Chesapeake Bay Trust that covered Conestoga Valley, Ephrata and Columbia school districts. Due to pandemic delays, programming started in 2021 with two cohorts, followed by one cohort in each of the following summers.

The training is free for teachers and now utilizes funds from lead sponsor Arconic Foundation and additional support from the Pennsylvania Department of Education, the Lancaster Agriculture Council, CNH Industrial and Sierra Club Lancaster.

As the funding base has expanded, so has the program’s reach. This year’s participants hailed from ​nine different school districts: Conestoga Valley, Ephrata, Lampeter-Strasburg, Warwick, Manheim Central, Manheim Township, Cocalico, Eastern Lancaster County and Penn Manor.

Enrollment for the program has been largely through word of mouth, with organizers sending out email notifications to their networks when registration opens.

This year’s training filled in less than a day, Hovan said, calling that “a sign that the word is out that this is a good program to be a part of.”

Teachers who are interested in learning more about OLNI can reach out to Sallie Gregory, the education coordinator for the Lancaster County Conservation District, at lccd@lancasterconservation.org.

In addition to providing physical materials, such as chemistry tests needed for stream studies, the program connects teachers with Lancaster County organizations willing to host students for future field trips.

“We’re also sharing all of these local resources that can help support teachers,” Gregory said.