Outdoor Education

Sheridan’s outdoor education program incorporates the Mountain Campus, a residential facility that promotes learning, cooperation, responsibility, environmental awareness, community spirit, and resourcefulness through experiential education and adventure challenges. We provide a safe community in which participants are encouraged to deepen their understanding of each other, themselves, and their natural environment through problem solving, exploration, and communication.

Through unique, engaging, hands-on learning experiences, students are challenged and inspired to enhance their sense of self. Our setting fosters trust and confidence in a way that encourages risk-taking and creates space for both personal and academic growth. The curriculum unites classroom disciplines and outdoor education with the spontaneity of exploration and cooperation. It brings intangible skills to life through problem solving, effective communication, leadership initiatives, successful failure, and community living. Students’ knowledge, skills, and understandings are built upon each year. They play an active role in the learning process through “challenge by choice,” a philosophy that encourages students to participate in challenging activities but respects individual decisions not to participate.
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Over their years at Sheridan, students develop a deep connection with the Mountain Campus and a sense of belonging. Beginning in kindergarten, each class visits the Mountain Campus once in the fall and once in the spring. In kindergarten through second grade, family members are encouraged to attend with their children. In third grade, a small group of parents/guardians attend with the children, and in fourth through eighth grades, the students attend Mountain Campus with only their teachers. The duration of the trips grow in a developmentally appropriate sequence, from day trips at the start of kindergarten to week-long trips by eighth grade.