Passport to Texas

Outdoor Kids

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Texas Parks and Wildlife offers a variety of enhancements for teachers and educators to use in and out of the classroom.

19— We offer outdoor skills training; we offer additions to curriculum – all kinds of supportive materials – to help people introduce youth to the outdoors and to outdoor skills so that they become more aware of their surroundings, enjoy the natural world, and feel connected to our natural resources.

Nancy Herron is Director of Outreach and Education. A new curriculum on aquatic ecosystems of Texas provides a template for understanding water, the living things that depend on it, and our future decisions about it.

31— Without a basic understanding of how our aquatic systems work, it’s going to be very difficult to make those tough decisions that are facing us, such as how much water we need to have in a stream? Isn’t that an unusual question? I mean, it’s not something that people normally would think about; how would you even understand how to approach that question? Our folks are going to be making a lot of tough decisions in the future as we balance the needs of people and the environment. And we need to have a good understanding of how the environment works to do that.

The electronic student and teacher guides for aquatic ecosystems of Texas will be available on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website, and partner website: the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, and the Hart Research Institute.

The Sport Fish Restoration program supports our series and works increase fishing and boating opportunities in Texas.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Burnie Kessner teaching teachers archery

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Archery—the original shooting sport—fell out of favor as a component of physical education in public schools some years ago. But, now, thanks to the National Archery in Schools program, interest in the sport is growing fast.

The National Archery in Schools program certifies teachers as instructors. Educators learn the program just as they will teach it to their students.

06—It’s an all day workshop to become a certified instructor. They learn with the same equipment and the same method.

Burnie Kessner is archery coordinator for Texas Parks and Wildlife.

10—We use international style archery. It’s bulls-eye target faces, Olympic size. We use Olympic whistle commands, and they learn the same way worldwide.

Kessner says while certified instructors prepare students for tournaments, the successes a child experiences extend beyond the bulls-eye.

13—So, when a kid is shooting archery, and they’re on the shooting line—they’re all the same. So, it doesn’t matter what kind of home they go home to after the tournament, when they’re at the tournament, they’re the same as everyone else. So, that’s the self-esteem building piece; it’s standardized.

Learn more about bringing the Archery in Schools program to your district on the Texas parks and Wildlife Website.

Our series receives support from the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program… working to increase fishing, hunting, shooting and boating opportunities in Texas.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Project Wild

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Ag Science Teacher Emily Rollison doesn’t mind if her Rivera ISD students get wild in the classroom. In fact, it’s part of the curriculum.

11— I have wildlife classes that I teach every year. And I use Project Wild as part of the curriculum in my class to reinforce the TEKS and the standards that I’m supposed to meet.

Project WILD is an environmental and conservation education program from Parks and Wildlife that emphasizes understanding wildlife and natural resources.

19— I’ve been working with Project Wild for probably the last seven years now. I taught it at A&M, and now I’m teaching it in the high school classroom. My students really enjoy the projects and activities that they’re exposed to, because we get outside of the classroom. And even the indoor activities really enhance their creativity.

Project WILD helps students develop critical thinking, too.

20 —They do a lot of problem-solving in Project WILD – especially when they have to determine what the outcome is going to be in the middle of the project. And we’ll stop in the middle and I’ll ask, ‘What do you think is going to happen?” Then we’ll go on and complete the project, and then we’ll discuss: ‘Is that what you thought was going to happen, or is it not –and why or why not?’

Learn about TPW outreach and education programs on the TPW website.

The WSFR program supports our series and funds diverse conservation projects throughout Texas.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Hunter Education

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At Allen High School—near Dallas—getting outside is part of the curriculum.

16— It’s a curriculum that teaches the TPW hunter education, boater education, and also the angler education… along with some other things like the National Archery in the Schools program camping, outdoor survival and things like that.

Jason Anderson is an Outdoor Adventure educator at the school. Students who take the course may earn an elective or physical education credit.

13— It’s quite amazing; our first year I started out with 111 students. This past year I had 275, and enrolled for next year I have 590 students enrolled in our outdoor adventure class and hunter education.

Anderson was a PE teacher and coach, but says the outdoor curriculum, especially Hunter Education, is so popular, he had to give up coaching.

19 — Students are really interested in hunting. In Collin County you couldn’t deer hunt for a long time. Well, two years ago TPW opened up where you now have an archery season. So, a lot of our students are really interested in the bow hunting part of it. There’s still a little bit of land left in Collin County where they can actually do some deer hunting.

Jason Anderson says the ethics students learn in hunter education stays with them throughout their lives. Bring TPW outreach and education programs to your classroom learn how on the TPW website.

Support provided by Ram Trucks. Doing what’s right and good regardless of the degree of difficulty — takes guts. Those are the people who build Ram trucks. RAM.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Teaching kids to fish.

Back to School Week: Outdoor Education Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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.