What is N.B.O.G.?
We are a multi-age outdoor education program for homeschoolers aged 5 to 17!
In the Nature-Based Ongoing Group (“NBOG”), we’re not out of the woods yet, and we’re fine with that. In fact, we’re glad, because it’s in the forest that we’ve spent many a happy day, learning and growing together in our knowledge and appreciation of the natural world. Initiated in 2006 by homeschooling parents who wanted to get their kids outside to foster nature-based learning and community, NBOG meets Fridays in Felton, California.
Felton offers a central location and easy driving access for our families living nearby in Santa Cruz and in the San Lorenzo Valley, and participating families come from as far away as Los Altos, San Jose, Corralitos, Gilroy and Moss Landing. Most importantly our primary location offers five distinct plant communities within easy hiking distance, including the redwood forest, the sandills, and the riparian habitat along the San Lorenzo River.
What we do…
Like most outdoor education programs for children, NBOG seeks to impart both knowledge and skills in the realms of natural science and outdoor survival. Unlike many other programs, we use these as a context for fostering a sense of community among participating children and their families, helping to develop emotional intelligence, communication, collaboration, and problem-solving skills. It is with these goals in mind that we call ourselves an Ongoing Group and ask students to commit to enrolling for a full school year and parents to participate by assisting in class several days per year. For many families it is the learning and enjoyment within the community that inspires them to reenroll year after year.
It’s in a spirit of play that learning sticks, that kids remember and apply what they’ve learned to new tasks and situations. Parents and educators have observed this truth for generations; recent brain research has confirmed it. In NBOG, we seek to generate a purposeful spirit of play in just about everything we do: we play plant and animal identification games, we sing and play movement games, we play games to extend our physical coordination and endurance, to learn to tie knots, to learn to build survival shelters, to get acquainted with one another, to improve our ability to communicate, and to foster compassion for one another.
NBOG teachers do offer direct instruction in specific skills, local history and natural science content, yet they rely more on active, interactive, and investigative methods that challenge and invite children to discover information for themselves and to develop skills collaboratively and on their own. Teachers and parents often serve more as leaders and facilitators than as instructors in the traditional sense. This “coyote teaching” approach engages kids cooperatively, through inquiry. The effectiveness and benefits of this approach are more gradual and subtle, yet are more powerful and lasting than are more familiar “sage on stage” teaching methods.Teachers draw from a variety of sources and authors in designing our blended nature-themed and social skills curriculum, including Richard Luov (Last Child in the Woods), Jon Young (Coyote’s Guide to Connecting with Nature), Tom Brown (Field Guide to Nature and Survival for Children), Joseph Cornell (Sharing Nature with Children), Marshall Rosenberg (Non-Violent Communication books and materials), and Dale LeFevre (New Games).
Participation
NBOG meets 27-30 Fridays through the school year. Normal days in the field are punctuated through four seasonal “festival days” (that include parent- and teacher-led craft stations, games, and potluck feast), River Clean-Up Day (as part of the regional Coastal Clean-Up Day in September), a year-end, two-night campout at a local group campground, and optional backpacking trips for kids 9 years and older.
For more details about our program, please download our Program Description!