Sierra Nevada Journeys (SNJ) is an outdoor education organization that has grown substantially since its founding in 2006. The organization offers a variety of programs to students in California and Nevada, but currently lacks the infrastructure necessary to meet increased demand and provide optimal outdoor education experiences for its students. As the organization prepares to receive a large land donation from their parent organization, the Sierra Health Foundation, they reached out to the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment to receive guidance on how best to approach their expansion.
Originally, the organization sought guidance in deciding how they should proceed with meeting increased demand, whether this should be completed through physical campus expansion or instead through curriculum expansion to host students throughout the year (later referred to as “winterization”). As the project evolved, the organization gained a better idea of its needs and available resources, including a future donation by Sierra Health Foundation of the land where Grizzly Creek Ranch (GCR), their 1,500-acre outdoor education learning center, is located. With this new information, they decided to proceed with a physical campus expansion that would allow them to better serve the students who attended programs at GCR and instructed us to explore this avenue for the expansion.
In the new scenario, we aimed to provide a plan to enable SNJ to grow their programming through the addition of classroom space and curriculum, as well as an improved landscape design to match their educational needs. To begin shaping their recommendation, the team conducted background research to understand the history and trends in outdoor environmental education. After gaining in-depth knowledge of the area of interest, further research in the form of case studies and qualitative interviews were conducted with experts from best-in-class outdoor environmental education organizations from the United States and Canada. The results of this primary research included information on how environmental education center leaders utilized their classrooms, planned their expansions, embraced their mission, and implemented their curriculum. Pairing this newly acquired knowledge with our knowledge of SNJ’s needs and resources, we ultimately developed recommendations that included curriculum adjustments, landscape design to enhance environmental education programming, and types of structures that would not only meet their needs, but also help them to embrace their mission.
The final recommendations provided by our team will propel the SNJ campus and the on-campus learning experience to the next level of outdoor education, and include 1) the addition of an indoor learning space (classroom) designed as a modular building with sustainability features and 2) a landscape design that includes the addition of physical features that both enhance current curriculum (e.g. forest ecology, pond ecology, water cycle) and also create opportunities for new curriculum (e.g. soil ecology, land forms, sustainability challenge, food cycle). We ultimately provided a design proposal that put SNJ’s mission of environmental education at the forefront. Each

aspect of the recommendation puts SNJ’s mission first, offering a best case scenario without monetary or regulatory restrictions. Ultimately, the team was able to apply the perspective of their individual specialties (Landscape Architecture, Sustainable Systems, Behavior, Education and Communication) to provide a sustainability-driven solution to SNJ.