100 Mile Elementary
In Mrs. Simcox’s outdoor classroom, the forest becomes a living learning space where big ideas are explored through play, collaboration, and place-based experience.
As students build forts, they negotiate roles, share resources, and solve problems together. Through trading and exchange, they begin to understand fairness, value, and relationships. These hands-on experiences naturally lead into conversations about governing systems—how groups make decisions, create agreements, and take responsibility for shared spaces.
Learning in this way provides an authentic entry point for understanding treaty. Students experience what it means to live on the land together, to respect agreements, and to recognize that cooperation and mutual responsibility are essential for communities to thrive.
This is place-based learning at its best—rooted in the local environment, connected to lived experience, and meaningful to students. By learning through the forest, students deepen their understanding of social studies concepts while building belonging, independence, and respect for one another and the land.
