Community Education

We educate and engage the community and visitors through activities on environmental topics and current issues. Intersectionality is present in most Community Education events – from art to social justice and so much in between we attempt to bring issues to light by inviting experts to facilitate events with us. 

We sponsor and organize walks and talks geared towards families or all people. In all of our series, including our Friends and Family Nature Walks, we aim to host events throughout the bioregion and ensure the education is fun and enlightening for the whole family. Learn more by clicking below!

We also educate through our Youth Environmental Education series. These events are geared towards children and often are tailored to meet the needs of the youth of a wide age and developmental range. These events may be in a classroom with an associated field, indoors or outdoors, within an educational institution or not. Still, they always educate and engage on environmental issues with the same intersectionality as our Friends and Family Nature Walk series. Learn more by clicking below!

Guided Nature Walks, Talks, & Exploration

Join us for a Friends and Family Nature Walk, a Sustainability Talk, or for some Exploration in Arts & Nature. Our Guided Nature Walks, Talks and Exploration programs have something for everyone! These events are always free.

Friends & Family Nature Walks

Go on a walk that includes all ages! We aim to engage people of all ages in these tactile, accessible adventures.

Our Friends & Family Nature Walk Program is designed to be a fun and educational experience for community members of all ages. In our technological society, the environmental wisdom and connection our ancestors relied upon can be lost in the noise. If we want to reverse this trend and grow into a society that is technologically advanced as well as deeply connected to our natural environment, we need to strive for balance.

Friends & Family Nature Walks are a multi-faceted sensory experience for people of all ages. We are sure to enjoy a nibble if Mint crosses our path or feel the soft leaves of Mullein. We’re going to get our hands dirty, learn new skills, and more.

We have squished and experienced the color-changing magic of St. John’s Wort flowers and enjoyed the silly surprise of Cleavers sticking to our clothes! We’ve watched predator birds roost and learned about symbiotic relationships.

These walks include themes of art, journaling, ecology, and/or sustainability. We may forage for edible and medicinal plants, learn about woodworking or participate in a BioBlitz, cataloging species for the bioregion or even volunteer to do a weed pull at a local park. The range is far and wide, so find out more by reading below and checking out our past and future events!

Arts & Nature

Reach into exploration with our Arts & Nature programs! Participate in nature based art projects, get present in our Nature Journaling Series, and access your inner writer in our Writing Nature Series.

Our nature based art programs feature a wide range of projects including: creating temporary art with only natural items, tie dying with natural dye, making ink from soil and charcoal, making collage boxes with natural objects, and more. 

Our Nature Journaling series features guided journaling activities in which participants will use words, pictures, and numbers to collect and record their observations, questions, connections, and explanations. You don’t need to be an artist, writer or a naturalist. It’s not about creating a masterpiece, it’s about observation and connection. Participants will be guided by thoughtful prompts and there will be opportunities to share. According to the Wild Wonder Foundation, Nature journaling is a way to practice presence and helps us discover and think critically. It enhances our observations, curiosity, gratitude, reverence, memory, and joy. Nature journaling is not only creative and playful for all ages, but it is accessible to anyone at any time. We hope you’ll explore with us and discover the wonder the Earth has to offer. To find out more, check out https://www.wildwonder.org/what-is-nature-journaling

Our Writing Nature series will guide writers of any experience to connect with themselves, the Earth and the community. Each workshop features grounding prompts, nature walks, and time to reflect and share. 

Sustainability Talks

Join us for our Sustainability Talk series to learn how you can support the Earth in your everyday living.

Our Sustainability series aims to cultivate a better relationship with the Earth and all other beings that share the planet with us. Whether you are interested in organic gardening, building a tiny house, or how to grow mushrooms, we have something for you. Events feature workshops on pollinators, mushroom growing, permaculture, canning and fermenting, eco-building and more.

Youth Environmental Education

The youth education series is made for kids and teens. We try to curate the information to be shared for children of all ages, each event is different. We partner with schools to do classroom presentations and field trips. These events are always free.

Youth Environmental Education

Our Youth Education program is geared towards children and teens and often are tailored to meet the needs of the youth of a wide age and developmental range. These events may be in a classroom with an associated field, indoors or outdoors, within an educational institution or not. They may include nature themed storytimes at a local library or bookstore or field trips for students that don’t often get the privilege of exploring our outdoor spaces. Still, they always educate and engage on environmental issues with intersectionality kept in mind. Learn more about events you may attend by clicking below!

Youth Stewardship & Volunteer Opportunities

In addition to our adult volunteer opportunities with the H.O.M.E. program, we also offer stewardship and volunteer opportunities specifically for youth. These events are free and you can find out more by clicking here!

Environmental stewardship and youth education are important to us, so we seek to provide opportunities for youth to volunteer. In addition to volunteering with our H.O.M.E. program, youth can participate in habitat and watershed restoration projects, community and park clean ups, trail work, weed pulling and more. In 2025, we hope to create a Community Garden club in which students will start and maintain a plot at Mt. Shasta’s Community Garden from seed to harvest. In addition, we plan to partner with local school sustainability clubs in the bioregion to execute environmental projects.

All of our community education programs relate to the movement on which we were founded – bioregionalism. 

“The bioregional idea is that you’re a part of the place where you live. Your food, the way you live, your wastes, your water, the way you relate to the materials and shelter is actually a part of the living place where you live.” All of these things are influenced by bioregional characteristics – climate, watersheds, land forms, native plants and animals. “If you don’t recognize the natural life forms and forces where you live, you’ll surely destroy them..If you do recognize the natural forces, there’s an opportunity to harmonize with them…What are some of the goals of living bioregionally? These are so simple: restore and maintain the life systems where you live, as much as you can. Find sustainable ways to fill basic human needs – food, shelter, water, culture, community…Bioregionalism means to support the work of reinhabitation, becoming native to the place where you live.” – The Bioregional Vision by Peter Berg, fall/winter 1992-1993 Mount Shasta Bioregional Ecology Newsletter. 

By connecting with the many threads of community of all beings in our bioregion, we build resiliency, not just for the big challenges, but also for the every day struggles that we all carry. The Earth will hold us, if we remember to hold the Earth. 

Our Community Education Program has embraced the needs of the community over many years and we’ve been flexible in our offerings.

We coordinated and edited the Sustainability Column in the Mount Shasta Herald during the early 2000’s and then picked it up again in 2018 until the Herald was bought out by Gannett and the column was removed along with all of the local content. We covered environmental topics and encouraged local writers to submit story ideas for us to help edit to be published.

In 2015, we reviewed the ongoing effects of human-caused climate change on our bioregion, resulting in the Renew Siskiyou climate adaptation study which has helped guide our programs and develop priorities. We also recognize the groundwork this effort built that has led to collaboratives such as the Siskiyou Climate Collaborative.