Nevada Outdoor School (NOS) takes students outdoors and teaches them how to respect the environment, recreate safely, and enjoy Nevada’s unique beauty.
Just this month NOS received funds from the Nevada Outdoor Education and Recreation (NOER) grant program (through the Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resources) for $25,800 to go towards their Nature in My World, Nature in the Park, and Nature Explorers programs, all geared towards youth in the community.
Kendal Scott, Outdoor Education Lead for the Nevada Division of Outdoor Recreation (NDOR) said that “The Nevada Division of Outdoor Recreation is excited to have launched the Nevada Outdoor Education and Recreation grant program and to start getting funding into Nevada communities. Supporting local providers, like Nevada Outdoor School, spreads program resources into every corner of the state and benefits a wide range of kids.”
Nature in My World is school-based learning experiences, where NOS educators, provided by Americorps, visit schools and teach students in kindergarten through eighth grade a lesson that relates nature to things they are already learning at school. Nature in the Park, for kids four to seven years old, is an hour-long nature lesson at their local park that is different every week. Nature explorers is a summer camp program for kids from eight years old to 17 years old that ventures to different parts of the state.
Students learn about all sorts of things like predators and prey, natural resources such as water, sustainability and restoration, patterns in nature, how to collect data, compare and contrast, and so much more.
NOS Executive Director Melanie Erquiaga said that the idea behind all of their programs is essentially to get kids outdoors and to foster those positive experiences with nature. The even bigger goal, at the state level, is to establish an outdoor education environment near every school in Nevada.
“There are actual studies now where they can see the benefits [of outdoor education]. Teachers can see it, administrators see it. Instead of kids being all wound up, they actually come back to the classroom, rejuvenated and ready to learn— happier, healthier,” said Erquiaga.
Seeking funding like the grants such as the NOER is how NOS is able to provide their programs, but Erquiaga explained that changes within the funding matrixes at the state level have pushed them into a much smaller pool of funding, which is unfortunate but will not stop NOS from helping kids increase their time outdoors.
The NDOR, residing within the State Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, was created in 2019 and this year was the first round of allocations, which came from the states general fund.
According to the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, there were 68 submissions for the NOER grant program, asking over a million dollars, with only $250,000 able to be awarded in total.
Erquiaga said that the grant program is slower moving because of its adolescence, but NOS and other outdoor education stakeholders will keep advocating for recreation and outdoor education in Nevada.
The best way for the community to support recreation in Nevada, according to Erquiaga, is to participate and pay the minimal fee to get all off-highway vehicles (OHV) registered. The registration fees, just $20 a year, for dirt bikes, four wheelers, and other OHVs makes its way to the pot of money that NOS can apply for and eventually help fund their programs.
“Participating is the main way to support us…and just advocating for outdoor education and recreation in your community because eventually, this money is going to become available and if we don't make it sound important to our city leaders and our county leaders, why would they even spend their time going for it, right? Nothing is more frustrating than to put a bunch of money into something and then have nobody use it or show up or anything like that,” said Erquiaga.