What We Teach

Homeschool

• Tin Mountain offers a multi-week homeschool program series seasonally. Programs are geared toward elementary-aged students and are strongly tied to Tin Mountain’s mission of promoting environmental appreciation through hands-on learning. We spend almost all of our time outdoors learning and exploring.

homeschool programs

Project K.I.T.E. (Kids in the Environment)

• Project K.I.T.E is a multi-disciplinary program for grades K-8, which supports the schools’ curriculum using hands-on activities and demonstrations. Working closely with teachers, Tin Mountain Teacher/Naturalists design a program for each specific class. Each Project K.I.T.E. unit includes three classroom/school-yard visits and an all-day field trip. Aligned with NGSS, topics can include (but are not limited to):
  • Habitats
  • Winter Animal Adaptations
  • Life Cycles
  • Forest ecology
  • Plants
  • Earth Science 
  • Renewable energy/Solar power
  • Watersheds
  • Alpine Ecology
  • Forest history of NH and ME
  • Energy cycles in the environment

Environmental Year

• During the Environmental Year, Teacher/Naturalists visit a classroom every week for 34 weeks with a comprehensive set of activities to teach the principles of the natural sciences. Numerous outdoor activities and field trips help cement these concepts with hands-on explorations. Environmental Year serves as the backbone of the Tin Mountain School Programs as it provides consistency between the Teacher/Naturalists and the students each week for an entire school year.

Students enjoying nature's classroom

Extra Hours

• Schools request a number of Tin Mountain programming hours that are designed to meet the special needs of their classrooms. Examples include offering special field trips, a more extensive learning unit, individual classes, or conducting special projects, e.g. recycling, river monitoring, invasive species removal, etc.

High School Programs

• Tin Mountain partners with teachers to provide coursework to use with students in the classroom and/or provide professional development for teachers.
• Extended Learning Opportunities (ELOs)/Independent Studies 
  • Tin Mountain provides mentorship to high school students to use real-world data and field collection protocols to create a learning opportunity tailored to the student’s interest. Past ELOs have included setting up a long term forest plot study, designing interpretive teaching materials for elementary schools, and educational outreach on climate action.

Learning dendrology in nature's classroom

Teacher Workshops

• Tin Mountain offers various science related teacher workshops that are full of information and activity ideas that teachers can bring back to their classroom. Programs are offered onsite periodically throughout the year or you can schedule a Tin Mountain Teacher/Naturalist to come to your school to lead a workshop. 
  • Past workshops have included: 
    • Developing Inquiry Based Projects for Elementary and High School Students
    • Teaching Outside in the Winter
    • Forests as a Classroom
    • Arts and Science
    • Bird Ecology 
    • …and more