Archive for August 12th, 2013

Back to School Week: Outdoor Education

Monday, August 12th, 2013

Teaching kids to fish.

Teaching kids to fish.



This is Passport to Texas

Dave Robertstad, a physical education teacher in the Corsicana School District, says the obesity epidemic among school-aged children made him think outside the gymnasium for answers.

06— I came up with the idea of doing anything I can to encourage kids to get outside and move.

He turned to his own love of the outdoors for inspiration.

09—And so I started looking for activities that would interest our kids, and fishing, and hiking, and birding and those kinds of activities came up — and I started to develop that.

He tapped into Texas Parks and Wildlife Outreach and Education programs, becoming a certified angler education instructor, but didn’t stop there.

15 —I’m doing boater education this weekend; I’ve done archery in the schools training through Texas Parks and Wildlife – just to provide my students an exposure to different activities outdoors, with the hope that they will become more fit just because they’re going to want to go out and do those things.

Dave Robertstad even gives students extra credit points for going to state parks – points they can use like cash in their school store.

13— It encourages those kids to get outdoors and say, ‘Hey, I think that’s important.’ And I’m going to give you some extra credit, and you can use those points in our store and reward yourself for making the effort to get outdoors and do something.

Learn about TPW outreach and education programs on the TPW website. We receive funding from Chevrolet, supporting outdoor recreation in Texas; because there’s life to be done. For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.