Let nature be your teacher: An inquiry into wild classrooms

by
Richard A. Frazier, Central Missouri State University, Warrensburg, Missouri
Paul D. Lane, The American School of Dubai 

"I have a wish for humanity: that all of our children would become field naturalists as they grow up. Imagine living in a society where every youth has the chance to explore the earth on foot and in hand, getting to know its creatures on a first-name basis." (Gary Paul Nabhan, 1997, p. 97)

An introduction.

Our title comes from a poem by William Wordsworth, “The Tables Turned,” published in 1798. Wordsworth wrote of the poem, “The lines entitled Expostulation and Reply and those which follow [The Tables Turned], arose out of conversation with a friend who was somewhat unreasonably attached to modern books of moral philosophy.” The poem is worth considering as part of an inquiry into wild classrooms. Wordsworth, a writer who derived great benefit from books, advocates in his work, to “quit your books” and to “Let Nature be your teacher.”   

Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books; 
Or surely you'll grow double:
Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble? 

The sun above the mountain's head,
A freshening lustre mellow
Through all the long green fields has spread,
His first sweet evening yellow. 

Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife:
Come, hear the woodland linnet,
How sweet his music! on my life,
There's more of wisdom in it. 

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
He, too, is no mean preacher:
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your teacher. 

She has a world of ready wealth,
Our minds and hearts to bless--
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness. 

One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can. 

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:--
We murder to dissect. 

Enough of Science and of Art;
Close up those barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.

	The two authors are experienced science teachers.  The teaching experience ranges geographically from Missouri, Colorado, and Illinois in the United States to Turkey, Sierra Leone, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Morocco, Indonesia, Singapore, Qatar, and Dubai in the world abroad. We have been departmental colleagues when we worked at the same school and we have collaborated both formally and informally when we have worked at different schools.  By coincidence we both spent our early life and experienced our first contact with nature in Missouri. We first met in Saudi Arabia.  Our initial efforts at collaboration came from an effort to inject more activity and inquiry into an 8th grade earth science course. Field trips to investigate desert landforms and to observe the night sky were included in the course.  We developed a related mini-course for students in grades 7,8, and 9 in oceanography and included snorkeling and skin-diving training. The mini-course culminated with a trip to the Arabian Gulf.  One of us developed an extended field trip across the Arabian Peninsula for the students of a small desert school.  This trip included desert geology and ecology, Bedouin culture, Arabian archaeology and history, and the ecology and natural history of the Red Sea. Other trips organized by this author took students to the Himalayas in Northern Pakistan and to Gunung Leuser National Park in Sumatra, Indonesia.  The trip to Gunung Leuser included natural history survey work under the supervision of scientists from the European Union and Leuser Conservancy. The other author has taken students on nature trips to caves, farms, and waterfalls in Java, Indonesia, to farms, forests, and seashores in Johor and Melaka States in Malaysia, and to a (perhaps surprising) number of nature sites in Singapore. Both of us have extensively used our respective schoolyards and their nearby "wild" areas for nature study. Together we have taken a small group of students into a remote area of Northern Sumatra. From our initial collaboration we have engaged in an ongoing dialog about field trips for students.  In the past few years we have begun to collect, document, and reflect on our experiences, thoughts, and feelings about taking children into wild classrooms.  

The research orientation.

“Search within yourselves and you will find everything; and be glad if out there, however you choose to name it, a nature lies which says ‘Yes and Amen’ to everything that you have found within yourselves.” (Goethe)

	We have already begun with citations from a poet and a scientist-poet both writing at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century.  Both make provocative suggestions for education and research. Our inquiry is submitted under the conference theme, “Creating Knowledge in the 21st Century: Insights From Multiple Perspectives.” Our inquiry originates in practice. Any claims to expertise do not rest in a model of educational research where the investigator investigates some piece of an educational phenomenon, conducts an analysis of observations, searches for general patterns, and then transmits those findings to other researchers and ostensibly to practioners whose practice will be transformed in light of the findings. Any expertise that could be attributed to our work here rests solely in the fact that we, as teachers, have taken a good number of students to wild places in order to implement school-based activities we had planned and arranged. Our goal is not to transmit the truth of our findings to improve the practice of others. Rather, we, as practioners, have decided to investigate our own practice. What we hope for through reflection and inquiry is new insight, transformation perhaps, the growth of new "awarenesses." Of course, we wish to become better teachers.
Establishing the genealogy of ideas is a customary task in educational research. Teachers, on the other hand, may be known in stereotype to beg, borrow, and steal great lesson plans, to repeat, without examination, the classic school demonstrations, homilies, and truths, and to devote themselves religiously to a particular pedagogical style or singular educational theory. When teachers venture into research, when they claim to aspire to reflective practice, when they arrogate the terrain of objectivity and validity, then they may be most suspect in identifying the descent of intellectual authority in their methods and rationalizations. We realize the danger of being perceived as interlopers.  And we understand that some would recognize our accounts of wild classrooms as more properly placed in a teachers' conference than in a forum for educational researchers.  
We, however, claim sanctuary under the tent of  "multiple perspectives," hospitality at the table of the "21st Century," and kinship with the family of thinkers who have questioned the boundaries of observation and theory, subject and object, researcher and practioner. One of us has written before of a bridge the teacher might take over the research-practice gap. (Frazier, 1996) We have already invoked Goethe who warns against the infatuations of reducing phenomena to mechanism and symbol. Goethe sounds surprisingly modern, at times.  He certainly defies easy categorization.  His four spheres or orientations to Nature are a helpful example of multiple perspectives.

(1)	The utilizers, advocates and seekers of things practical, are the first to plough the field of science, metaphorically speaking, and they aim at practical results.  Self-confidence derived from experience gives them assurance; necessity gives them a certain breadth.
(2)	Fact-finders, those who crave knowledge for its own sake, require a calm, disinterested gaze, an inquisitive unrest, a clear mind.  They are in contrast with the first group, but work out the results from the scientific point of view exclusively.
(3)	The contemplators are somewhat more original, for the mere increase of knowledge unwittingly fosters interpretation and crosses over into it.  Even the fact-finders, however much they may make the sign of the crucifix at the very thought of imagination, before they realized it are compelled to call upon this selfsame power for assistance.
(4)	The comprehenders--in a deeper sense they might be called creators--are original in the highest sense of the term. By proceeding from ideas, they simultaneously express the unity of the whole, and it is almost the obligation of Nature to conform to the ideas. (Goethe, in Mueller translation ,1989, p. 92)

(Goethe's categories were especially helpful to us in our initial attempts to understand teachers' motivations and rationalizations in advocating trips to wild classrooms.) 
Paradigmatic science also yields recognition of the imprecise boundaries that can characterize inquiry.  Einstein is said to have stated (in response to a suggestion from Heisenberg), "But on principle, it is quite wrong to try founding a theory on observable magnitudes alone. In reality the very opposite happens. It is the theory which decides what we can observe." (Heisenberg, 1971, p. 63) Within educational research itself, the argument has been made by others that practioners can examine their own practice and can, from reflective examination, produce "living educational theories." (Whitehead, 1989, 1998) One of us has recently left practice as a middle school science teacher and has joined an institution of higher education where teacher preparation is a major mission. Reflective practice is promoted there as a highly significant outcome for prospective teachers. The state of Missouri, like many others, has established standards of reflective practice for preservice teacher education programs.  (DESE, 1999)       

1.2.9 The preservice teacher is a reflective practitioner who continually assesses the effects of choices and actions on others. This reflective practitioner actively seeks out opportunities to grow professionally and utilizes the assessment and professional growth to generate more learning for more students.
	
	We present our study, then, as an example of the reflection of experienced teachers, searching with multiple perspectives and examining diverse data.  Whether our efforts constitute legitimate research concerns us in two ways.  First, we feel that we have grown as teachers. This growth does not necessarily mean we think we are better; on the contrary, self-discovery often leads to humility. It is desirable for transformation to lead to improvement, but we make no claims at this point. We have learned things about our own motivations, rationalizations, and orientations we did not know before.  Second, we hope that others will find both the familiar and the new in our account. If our questions and examples rouse others to share their own examples and to ask themselves new questions, then we will feel successful. If, through discourse arising from our study, we continue to question, reflect, and grow, then in our view, the research will be legitimate. 
	As a final note on our research orientation, we must confess that we care deeply about our students and about wild nature.  We have seen firsthand the destruction of primeval rainforest and the loss of irreplaceable coral reef in the last years of the 20th century. We hope that our inquiry about wild classrooms has relevance for children and wilderness in the 21st.   

Our data, our methods.

	The data for this inquiry are diverse (in the spirit of multiple perspectives). They are also typical for practitioners in the sense that teachers would immediately recognize the terrain. They are serviceable, we think, for the kind of qualitative goals we have.  For someone who adheres to strict objectivist leanings, the data may appear insignificant, insufficient, subjective, scattered.  We are both science teachers and have spent our professional lives working with young people in the domains of observation, experiment, evidence, analysis, interpretation, and explanation.  Herein lies the first of several paradoxes. Although we know science and advocate it to our students, our own orchestration of the data is not hypothesis-driven and our methods are certainly not quantitative and experimental. If anything, we attempt to work as detectives or archaeologists of our own motivations, rationalizations, and ideas.  But what David Hammer writes about physics in his course description about "How to Learn Physics" is consistent with our own view of science in general and leads us back to a more fundamental grounding in science.

Learning physics is as much learning about yourself, about how and what you know and see and think, as it is finding out new things about the physical world. (1999)

Science is endlessly fascinating because as we attempt to learn about the world, we actually learn about ourselves.  Our method is to reflect on the diverse data we have gathered with the hope that our efforts to help children learn about the world will help us learn about ourselves and about children.
	The data consist of several artifacts. There are three tapes of children working in wild places.  The videos originated as many teachers' videos do with the purpose of documenting an activity/trip for parents, administrators, other teachers, and the students themselves. Verbatim transcripts of extended segments were made for Videos 1 and 2. Most of the segments are in the form of short interviews with students in the midst of school work in the wild classrooms. In Video 3 we use an interview with a visually handicapped teacher from a local school for the blind. Her comments struck us as extremely relevant and poignant, and we include them to provide balance to our own reflection. The videos were not recorded with the purpose of pursuing the inquiry described in this paper. There is a kind of authenticity in that they represent the documentation of practitioners. Because we are embedded in the context of recording our students (as their teachers), there is no claim that the recordings are somehow independent of our own conceptions, motivations, and constructions or of those of our students. A universe of information can emerge from video tape analysis. We will pick and choose and in so doing will further our inquiry through the choices and the reflection on those choices.

•	Video 1: Projects conducted by seventh graders in the school "forest" of a large, urban, expatriate school in tropical Asia. The site is a remnant forest garden / fruit tree plantation typical of traditional Southeast Asia.
•	Video 2: A trip into remote forest in Northern Sumatra by middle schoolers from a tiny, expatriate, "oil" school. The forest was continuous for great distance.  Logging was evident, but at the time of the trip extraction had been accomplished with animals.  The road was newly opened and led to a new natural gas well. Elephant and tiger had been spotted during the road construction.
•	Video 3: The large, urban, expatriate school had organized regular nature outings for the visually impaired to a rural, semi-wild island.  Two of these outings were recorded as well as research discussions on-site for the development of two permanent "braille trails."

There are several examples of student writing.

•	A baseline study of a new school site for the large, urban, expatriate school written by seventh graders. Approximately one sixth of the site was wooded in secondary tropical forest and abandoned forest garden / fruit tree plantation. Classes conducted natural history surveys of the flora and fauna as well as sociological surveys of the neighborhood and "archaeological" surveys of portions of the site.
•	Poetry and essays written by seventh graders from the large, urban, expatriate school as part of an assignment to submit creative, reflective writing in science.
•	Students' recollections two years after the trip to the forest in Northern Sumatra.

There is an audio taped recording of a discussion among teachers at a regional teachers' conference. 

•	The discussion followed a presentation by the authors on the practical aspects of mounting forest studies in small schools and large schools.  At that time we raised some of the issues we had been thinking about in regard to wild classrooms.  The conference was not well attended because of the fear of political unrest in the host country.  Our session, however, was packed.  We knew many of the participants as former colleagues, friends, and friends of friends. The discourse was friendly, interested, and forthright.  We rely on the tape both to generate and corroborate several emergent themes. We reflect as well on what was not said. Around 40 people attended the session.

We have been conducting a dialog for several years now on the issues surrounding wild classrooms. 

•	Parts of the dialog have been recorded on audio tape. Significant portions have been conducted through email. Other parts have been written in informal notes. This paper is an effort to consolidate our thinking on wild classrooms.   

We have various experiences and reminiscences that have surfaced as a result of our discussions.

•	We are both steeped in the "Show Me" skepticism of Missouri, and we understand how folks down home might say, "Of all the liars, memory is the most convincing." But we are also very curious about the nature of our own motivations and rationalizations in regard to our efforts to work with children in wild classrooms. We feel the reminiscences have a place in reflection. 

Wildness and biophilia.

	We open this paper with Gary Paul Nabhan's wish. His and Steven Trimble's The Geography of Childhood: Why Children Need Wild Places (1994) is a wonderful collection of childhood memories of experiences in nature and musings on childhood and nature. The Sonora Desert museum, where Nabhan has worked, is an outstanding "wild" classroom that reaches toward wildness from the confines of botanic gardens and zoos.  The pollinator garden is a favorite. Equally pleasing are those particular docents who also happen to be middle schoolers.  It is a delight to encounter them on a park pathway handling and explicating canid skulls or tarantulas for the visitors.  Are we biased at recognizing and approving of the love of wild things in the hands of adolescents?
	Tom Horton describes (in the June, 1999 issue of Natural History) a number of school projects where the environment is used as an "integrating context for learning." He writes of a visit by children to an island in Chesapeake Bay, "It took only hours for this natural paradise, where kids could catch their own seafood dinners, to work its magic."  David Sobel has written passionately about the importance of developmentally appropriate nature and place education for children. (1993, 1996, 1998)  Sobel advocates empathetic connection with nature for the very young. In Beyond ecophobia he concludes, "If we want children to flourish, to become truly empowered, then let us allow them to love the earth before we ask them to save it." (p. 39) In the conclusion to Children's special places, he predicts an essential consequence between the quality of children's relationships with place and decisions children will make as adults about the future of the earth.  

	Education in harmony with development should, among other things, create adults with both a sense of individual initiative and a sense of responsibility to the natural and social worlds. How do we accomplish this?  One small way we can help is to acknowledge, in our education, the world-making tendencies of the individual.  In middle childhood this means allowing the child to find and create private worlds.  If we allow children to shape their own small worlds in childhood, then they will grow up knowing and feeling that they can participate in shaping the big world tomorrow. (p. 161)

	E. O. Wilson (1984) has proposed the idea that human beings evolved both the need and the sense for deep connections with other living things and their environment. Wilson's hypothesis that humans possess an essential if complex desire to affiliate with life, biophilia, would seem to support motivations teachers have to arrange educational experiences for children in wild places. Wilson's own account of his development as a naturalist places him clearly in close contact with wild nature. Will Nixon's essay, "How nature shapes childhood," (1997) refers to Wilson's story, "For naturalists, a half-wild childhood may be fundamental."  Nixon summarizes the work of others (including Nabhan and Sobel mentioned previously) who contend that children's contact with wild nature is essential for the health of individuals and their cultures and who lament the increasing loss of such contact in modern, urban societies.
	Gary Snyder's collection of essays, The practice of the wild, (1990) explores the meaning of "wild."  He wanders and weaves in the articulate poet's voice through culture, language, myth, biology, and natural history.  "Wilderness may dwindle, but wildness won't go away," he poses as a fact to suggest a way to mediate the "dichotomy of the civilized and the wild." Snyder reminds that "Our bodies are wild," and we may think of the ecology of disease, the symbiosis with intestinal flora, and the power of the reproductive urge.  For Snyder, that which we think makes us human is ultimately wild. There is resonance with Wordsworth's poem quoted earlier when Snyder points out, "Language is learned in the house and the fields, not at school."
	While we enjoy citing the company of such illustrious thinkers, we have explored the critical terrain of our own experience and thinking.  In a recent exchange in our ongoing dialog, one of us asks the other: 

RF: Does this mean that wild classrooms will always be separate--sequestered--never a part of REAL school?

PL: Of course, wild classrooms will always be sequestered from real school.  Heidegger argues that our experience of death is inauthentic. And so is in effect our experience of the death of the other. And so on.  The only authentic experience we can have of death is our own death.  Just so, our experience of wild things is inauthentic--what we see on TV, read in textbooks and newspapers--and composed of indirect experience.  We cannot provide that experience within the classroom. We try to simulate rainforests, but they are a veneer of the real thing.  Just as botanic gardens are highly symbolic presentations of the real thing! If the above analogy holds true, the only authentic experience of the wild can be in the wild.  Nature must teach her own lessons.  Perhaps we should just step back and let it be so--which brings me to another question for you.  How authentic do you believe your class study area (CSA) at XXX was for your students?  It was an actual forest remnant after all.  But do you think students had the same wilderness experience as they would have in Gunung Leuser?  Don't get me wrong here! I think your CSA was spectacular and your students lucky to have it.  But for the sake of argument, are all wild areas mere remnants of something past and primordial--vestigial remnants that we reshape into our own image (as Joni Mitchell sings, "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.")  as wild places disappear.  Do we serve any higher good by taking our students into it or are we simply accelerating the disassembly of evolutionary biodiversity?

Various dilemmas emerge from our study. They seem to live as paradoxes and dichotomies and present difficult choices for us as teachers.  Teaching itself is fraught with contradictory demands from honoring the old stories while fostering the new ones to the various forms of educational triage that are practiced in the face of limiting resources like time and money. How is our own professed biophilia and love for wildness actually manifested within the practice we claim as professional? Do we have any idea as to the beneficial effects of bringing children to wild classrooms?  Is Nature a teacher whose lessons contribute to the development of reflective and responsible adults?
	Our definition of wild classrooms stretches from short trips within a regular class period to a wild site on or near the schoolyard to expeditions into remote sites.  Most of our recent work has been in the wet tropics of Southeast Asia, so examples of experiences in settings like tropical rainforests--primary, secondary, and anthropogenic--predominate. As indicated in the introduction, we have taken students into a wider range of wild habitats. 

Wild nature in our backgrounds.

We think the first data we present ought to be autobiographical. Through recollection we wonder if our own motivations and interpretations with regard to wild classrooms will become clear.  As mentioned above, nature experiences in childhood have been identified by successful naturalists as supremely crucial to their own development. One of us has recounted the following story on several occasions, two of which are recorded.  The first was composed as a part of the ongoing email dialog. We were discussing the things that made a field trip a good one. 

A perfect field trip, in my mind, would need neither justification nor approval; it would require no special "product" to prove to our smiling administrators or skeptical parents or our doubtful colleagues (or own worst critiques: ourselves!) that the trip was worthwhile. Since people are not perfect, however, it is unlikely that we will ever have perfect field trips. We are left only to entertain and examine our expectations, beliefs, activities, products, and assessment of field trips as if we are beachcombers, searching for bits of detritus that will make sense to us, that will serve as our message in the bottle.
My first trips to the "woods" was when I was a boy following my Grandpa C. into the bottomlands of the Ozarks to hunt squirrels. Because grandpa knew that squirrels would eventually come from the shelter of the trees to his cornfields below, our strategy was simply to find ourselves a comfortable spot, to sit, and wait. On some days, three or four squirrels would make their way across the river from limb to limb into grandpa's sights. Because my grandpa was a hunter and a trapper, a successful shot meant meat and fur. On these days, the product was obvious and tangible--squirrel meat for the soup pot and furs for market. However, there were other days that were no less pleasant in which no squirrels crossed the river. Grandpa sat on his log, smoking a pipe, watching the treetops while I looked up at the canopy of trees and waited.
During this time of quiet waiting, I began to take my first notice of the forest. The woods seemed to me then more than trees, or river, or squirrels, or grandpa and I: it was something bigger that seemed to have its own spirit. During these moments of quiet waiting, I first sensed the spirituality (not in church, mind you, but in the woods!) of biophilia. My conversion came in those moments of beatitude, waiting and watching, with grandpa, in the woods. To the point, I suspect grandpa enjoyed both trips, though he may have favored the trip that put meat on the table and money in the coffee can. But he did enjoy both trips, even if no product came of it. And I enjoyed the "no meat" trip more, because it seemed somehow cleaner, less intruded upon by our gunshots into the stillness of the morning.
What would be the result of a "no product" field trip? What if we said, next time we visit our wild classrooms, "I will not do a worksheet. I will not do a checklist. I will not constrain my students with data and experiments. I will not devise work (pretty package wrap) to convince others that this trip has been a valuable one. I will not produce bulletin boards, notebooks, or student writings upon my return to the classroom." What if we said, "This trip is worthwhile for its own sake, and unlike other field trips that this school may endorse, I will not ask students to produce anything from the trip. Their experiences will be their own; their products will be their own."

The story was recounted again at the request of the other author for the benefit of the audience attending the teachers' conference. The second telling was unrehearsed and the text was transcribed from audio tape.

RF: PL and I have been having this dialogue and as we thought about, "What point are we trying to make about taking kids to wild places—using the forest as a teacher—as a classroom?" We came up with a couple of themes that occurred in our dialog—one of them sort of had to do with the value of field trips in the first place—kind of the school part of field trips and how that works. And we also talked a lot about the importance of wildness, and wildness in our own lives and spending time in the woods. One of the things PL did is he told what I thought was just a wonderful story from his own background of going out with his grandpa squirrel hunting, so I’m going to ask him to quickly tell that story.

PL: Ok, you said you didn't want me to think about the question. That's a good question.
When I was a kid growing up in Southwest Missouri--my grandpa was a farmer and he had a large cornfield that was one of his primary agricultural assets means of income. The corn field of course was right by the river, and every day the squirrels would cross through the trees down in the corn field--so when I was a kid grandpa would take me down to the area underneath the trees and he would sit there with his 22. He was a hunter or trapper--he survived. He was sort of one of the original outdoorsman. He farmed because he had to. But he enjoyed hunting, and he took me along to the area, and we would sit for hours and days. Different times that we would go down there--and grandpa would pack his pipe when he would sit there and smoke and watch the tree tops.  And so I just did what he did and sat there and watched the tree tops and waited for the river crossing when the squirrels came.  For grandpa a good day was two or three squirrels because not only did it put meat in the stew for winter but it also kept them out of his cornfield. But I suspect down deep he loved the woods just as much as I did and perhaps more because it clearly meant something to him.  He never explained to me what it meant, but what it meant to me was my first connection with the forest. Because during those hours and days I would sit there and I would look up there at the treetops and I realized that there was something bigger than myself going on--that there was some sort of mystery to it all. And RF used the word I think somewhere on here, Biophilia, a term coined by E.O. Wilson. My first moments of truly loving nature were those moments. It was not forced on me. I did some hunting with my father but that was quail hunting--not like this where there were no standards or anything imposed upon me it just happened and I shared that 

RF: To me this was kind of a perfect story because it captured PL's connection with nature, but it arose kind of as an analogy to when we plan field trips as teachers. What are the expectations from all the parties involved, the parents, the kids, the teachers, the administrators? And how do we be accountable for the things that we do? As you look through the list of projects for the kids and that's one of the things that's always there--what do we do? How are we graded on this? And PL brought up what I thought was the interesting point is that he felt that his trips with his grandpa when they didn't get any squirrels were the best trips.  What if we proposed a no meat field trip? Would that be acceptable? 

	The squirrel hunting story provides a potent example of a good trip.  There is the paradox of feeling that the best hunting trip was the "no meat" trip and the transcendent experience of feeling individual smallness and mysterious grandeur at the majesty of nature.  Puzzling over the role of early experience and wondering what threads might connect it to teaching practice stimulated more recollection sent as one of innumerable email exchanges.   

I've thought much about the squirrel hunting story--think it is somehow prominent--significant.  You say in one of the versions "I realized that there was something bigger than myself going on--that there was some sort of mystery to it all."  In looking at some of the literature about the childhood experiences of naturalists, it seems that many do recollect such powerful occasions of something like intense engagement--not always spirituality so much, but connection.  
M. has talked with me some, because she's such an important part of my own development in adolescence--jeez! And much of our experience then and since has involved experiences in nature.
I guess my first memory is walking with my mother and father somewhere in B. County, I suspect.  I must have been three or four. We were looking for rocks--fossils or geodes--I remember two things really well.  One was the terrain--kind of that undulating topography of central Missouri--meadow/pasture vegetation--tree-lined fence rows--and gullies down into the stream cut, where we were searching. The other was the excitement of cracking the rocks open and finding something so different from what was outside. What's funny is I can't remember whether it was a sparkly geode or a geometrically ordered fossil.  There were so many geodes in Saudi when we were there, and I once plucked a round black stone from the river plain near Jomsom, Nepal.  My friend thought I was silly, but when we got back home and cracked it open, there was a straight cephalopod fossil tinged in gold color. Those adult occasions were always accompanied by a flashback to that fossil bed back in Missouri.
When I was in the second grade, a friend and I used to walk to school along a path beside a ditch--although we were supposed to stay on the road.  But the path wound along the bank through bushes and shrubs.  In the winter the water would freeze over and we'd slide on the ice.  Of course, on one trip the ice was not strong and we fell in.  After we moved to C., I would cross the field behind our house to a sandy road lined with big trees--elms and mulberries.  Trumpet vine formed an impenetrable hedge between many of the big trees. We'd climb the trees and make "hideout's" in the shrubs. The place was called "Lover's Lane" and we would find beer cans and whiskey bottles, condoms and shotgun shells. We hunted birds with sling shots, bb guns, and blow guns made from TV antennae after a big windstorm blew many down around town.  I once shot my cousin in the neck with a dart because "I didn't know it was loaded."  I most recently saw a blow gun in a tourist demonstration by the Penan in Borneo.  I loved "Lover's Lane" but once I chopped down a young sapling with a new Boy Scout knife I'd gotten as a gift.  I remember the fascination as the blade cut through the wood and the incredible sick feeling I had later realizing I had killed the tree just for fun.  Even now when I chop wood or cut brush, I think of that little tree. I was home one morning after graduation from university. I was still taking courses at a local college for certification, and I saw the local farmers taking down the trees along the lane.  It made me so upset even though I was 21.  It was weird, too, because I was good friends with the family who was doing the clearing.  In fact I went on the trek to Nepal with one of the brothers involved.  
My mother had interests in biology and art.  She had worked as a medical illustrator when I was very young.  She loved looking at things in the out of doors, but our family never went in for much camping.  She started painting seriously when I was in junior high, I guess. She tried all sorts of media and subjects from wild abstractions in acrylic to political topics in oil.  Eventually she settled into landscapes done in watercolor and seemed to find her "voice." There was a dual fascination with form and color--the form being at the scale of the landscape.  I think I feel that fascination, too, and consciously try to focus aesthetically whenever possible on form.  There were a number of paintings depicting the terrain where we used to look for the fossils/geodes.
In Boy Scouts I did get a chance to camp and loved every minute.  There was plenty of the discomfort, too, which you've mentioned at various times.  Raw chicken when the cooking plan didn't work, poison ivy, dirt, lost my glasses when the canoe capsized--even got raided when we were freshmen camping out.  That was a terrifying adventure that achieved the status of folklore for a while during high school.  There was one especially great trip to a scout ranch in New Mexico.  Had an encounter with a bear, caught trout in a mountain lake, saw incredible landscape.  I was the trip journalist and took black and white photos that were published in the hometown weekly.
M's family did a lot of camping as well as hunting and fishing.  I got indoctrinated pretty quickly.  There are some crazy stories, too.  In one of the fishing tales, M slings a bottle around with a line and hook. The hook catches in her hand and the bottle crashes into my head.  She panics with the profuse bleeding accompanying my head wound and I have to paddle the boat back to shore.  We were at some blue hole in M. county--my favorite is called Coonskin Johnson's Bluehole.  We spent a lot of time outside--I was reading Faulkner in college when we'd do a lot of hunting with her family at Christmas.  I remember coming onto a huge flock of Canada geese out on the river after hunting season.  As they took off, I remember the phrase, "the engine of God."
When we went back to our hometown to teach, we discovered how segregated the schools and culture were.  How did we not see this growing up?  The school was tracked and the lower tracks were treated dismally.  I took it on myself to offer field trips on weekends to some of the kids in the basic track.  It was a naive but telling effort--that experience in nature would be enriching for kids deprived of such experiences.  We took our own car full of kids four times during the year to the Ozarks, to caves, and to zoos.  I also worked on a project in alternative education for at risk kids--eventually we were using adventure education techniques exclusively.  M. organized her elementary classes around earth science. She took her students fossil hunting and cave exploring. Somehow we got convinced very early in our teaching career that out of school experiences were essential.  
Our own motivation to take the yearlong bicycle trip through Europe came from a desire for adventure and living and traveling closer to our bodies. That's when we met the group of high school cyclists and their teacher from Seattle.  They were biking around the world.  It made such an impression on us as young teachers to be with those guys for a few days on the road to Athens .  They were at once so amazing and at the same time so real. I think we became experience junkies after that.  I guess the analogy would be eating chili. We can hardly eat bland food anymore.  It's hard, too, to think of meaningful teaching without being out in the world.  Hmm? Wonder if any of this means anything?

	During all stages of our dialog, real trips supported the speculation, the reflection, and the willingness to ferret out and challenge our own assumptions.  Somehow, we felt the experiences often stood on their own in terms of significance and value.  One response to a request to supply a list of all time favorites follows.  

PL: Assuming that this will be beneficial, I'll talk about my favorite three trips.  I'm not sure if I can say why they are favorites.  But here they are:

#1 Favorite--Gunung Leuser Ecosystem--Sumatra, Indonesia
This trip had it all! 
(1)	Well-organized logistics (both with Mobil Oil and the scientists of the Leuser Conservancy); 
(2)	Remoteness and adversity in a real wilderness setting.  Discovery of the wild on several levels--in student projects, in catching poachers red-handed, in sleeping amongst the fire ants and mosquitoes at night;
(3)	Student interactions with scientists was intimate and personal, giving students an accurate idea of what a field biologist does;
(4)	Students were involved in planning and preparation (planning menus, cooking, setting up camp, student projects) which increased ownership;
(5)	Even "down" time was educational. Students bathing in snake-infested rivers makes for lifelong memories of the wild.
#2 Favorite--Hijaz Field Trip--Northern and Western Saudi Arabia
For similar reasons, the Hijaz field trip was one of my all time favorites.
(1)	Working with engineers from Corps of Engineers was like working with the Mobil guys.  There was demand for careful logistical planning.  Because we had the vehicles, camping materials, radio contact, and ground support, we felt we could take students into some of the remote spots in Northern and Western Saudi Arabia, including the Nafud Desert and the Mountainous Hijaz.
(2)	Student experiences of the wild included desert trekking through the Nafud to see geological  formations and snorkeling in the Red Sea to see marine life. Students also explored various archaeological sites en route, including petroglyphs, remnants of the Hijaz Railway, and Madain Saleh. 
(3)	This trip, however, always had students on the move. So rather than slowing down to the pace of the wilderness--the desert heat of the daytime and the solitaire of the night experienced on those terms--we were constantly on the move.

A question here:  Does the experience of the wild presuppose that we must "put roots down" staying long enough to see those anomalies and adversities of the natural classroom?

#3 Favorite--Nanga Parbat Field Trip--Karakoram Range, Northern Pakistan
This trip, one of my all time favorites, didn't have great logistical support.  In fact, logistical support was lousy and we constantly felt that our planning was suspect. (We had turned the trip planning and details to a local trekking agent. M. was trying to get his business started, but had never put together a trip of this size for expatriates--not to mention kids!  However,
(1)	The very scale and adversity of this trip authenticated the trip for me and students, too.  The Karakoram Range is one of the most desolate places on earth and trekking is strenuous.  Camping at Nanga Parbat basecamp in "fairy meadows" was probably the most stunning vista I have ever experienced. A 180 degree panorama of the "killer mountain."  Our three days in fairy meadows gave us the time to explore neighboring villages, low glaciers, and time to simply relax in the alpine sun.
(2)	We had done a lot of pre-conditioning for this trip and knew that we had a special group, but the chemistry of this group was very special.  Everyone was so supportive and understanding of our situation. And no one ever complained but all enjoyed the challenges of mountain trekking.

In 1993 one of us served as on the design committee for a new school as one of the faculty representatives.  A proposal was submitted to the architects and is included here to finish the autobiographical data presented in this study. This proposal preceded the actual establishment of the class study area as part of the school campus mentioned earlier. The purpose for including such data is to provide some background for any interpretation and reflection that follows.  

To: Architects / Landscape Architects
20 September, 1993
Planting Ideas for the New School Campus

Keep as much original vegetation as possible, especially in large area as a unit.  

At present on the site there are some valuable, mature trees--breadfruit, durian, other trees. The area should be surveyed before any clearing--to assess botanical wealth.  There's no point in squandering a resource only to try to buy it back later.  We have a unique opportunity to have as a part of the campus a piece of the rich heritage of Southeast Asia.  In a sense, the entire region owes its current economic importance to the wealth of forest products that formed the basis of trade over five hundred years ago.  Columbus intended to reach this part of the world when he set sail. The Portuguese along with the Dutch and English (Spanish in the Philippines; French in Indochina) carved up the region and set boundaries and institutions which still impact today's world.  Their collective desire as colonial powers focused on the botanical riches of the region. Southeast Asian rainforests were also instrumental in inspiring Alfred Russel Wallace's formulation of the theory of natural selection which was published contemporaneously with Darwin's. The plants of the region are key players in the economic, political and scientific histories that have affected the whole world.  Keeping a section of forest (even where its origin is abandoned plantation and kampong, like our site) is entirely appropriate for a school. It would be the greatest pity to waste what is now there.  The value as a resource is immense--from the academic to the aesthetic--from science to social studies--even to art and literature.  In the future, our city will need every bit of green space it can protect.  Our school can participate in the plan for an urban environment which is in harmony with nature.  Keeping a patch of forest on the school ground with its accompanying biodiversity is having an incredibly rich biological library and storehouse for no cost at all.  If the educational value were calculated against the monetary cost, the forest would be the best deal economically of any part of the school plan.  Such a deal should impress even the most hard line of the bottom line developers!

For new plantings, consider:

•	Economically important plants of the region (and the tropics).

•	Indigenous plants (Malay place name plants, for example).

•	Plants important in the history and culture (including religions) of the region.

•	Plants that are attractive to birds and other animals.

•	Plants that exhibit particular or unusual structures, behavior, reproduction, etc.

•	Plant that typify important taxonomic groups.

•	Important culinary and medicinal plants.

Species that fall into these categories can be suggested by the Botanic Gardens and National Parks Board scientific staff, the Botany Department of the National University, and various members of the Nature Society--some of whom are experts in urban planning and nature conservation.

Plant areas should also be planned for maximum diversity and complexity.  A rich botanic environment is more important in a school setting than a cleanly manicured lawn full of monotonous ornamentals.  It is OK; it is good to have rough, long grass areas with a rich mix of species.  It is good to have scrub areas with pioneer species typical of the forest edges. It is important for children (especially in an urban setting) to be able to see the dynamic success of ecosystems.  Children will need a place in a 21st century school with even a tiny bit of wilderness.  There will be plenty of golf courses and manicured parks and high tech buildings.  It is both appropriate and responsible for a school to preserve and protect a bit of nature!

	We hope that the inclusion of recollections from childhood to recent teaching practice provides a perspective into the context of our reflections.  At a practical level we consider the issues involved in taking children out of school to wild places and balance those with the issues of bringing wildness to the school. We expect that our biases are revealed somewhat in these autobiographical data, as much by what we have included as by what we have left out.

Students in wild classrooms.

	As teachers, we have subjected hundreds of children to our constructions of wild nature and education. Questions abound from our practice. What do students produce? What do they say? What kinds of science and poetry are generated by the encounters of urban, suburban, expatriate youth with places, species, and symbioses as wild as any they have ever experienced? What claims can be supported for the value of excursions and expeditions to wild places? Can we expect hopeful consequences to grow from the school-based experiences of students in wild classrooms? 
	In 1993, the seventh grade of a large expatriate school in Southeast Asia spent three days at the proposed site for a new school campus.  Approximately 125 students participated. Various subject matter classes had taken on tasks to complete various surveys.  Two science classes conducted floral surveys of the most densely wooded area.  One science class conducted a faunal survey that resulted primarily in a species list of the avifauna seen and identified.  Two language arts classes visited the surrounding neighborhoods and through observation protocols and interviews carried out a sociological survey.  Two social studies classes investigated the signs of human activity on the school site; they considered themselves as archaeologists. 
	The data presented here comes from a large document compiled from students' writing. Chapters consist of field reports that follow customary formats for school science writing. Other written data consist of anecdotes and comments included by the students.   A recollection is included here as well which was recorded on audio tape from the teachers' conference.
	Approximately one sixth of the 13 hectare site was wooded at the time of the survey.  The woodland consisted of forest garden or fruit tree plantation (that had been abandoned in the sense that no weeding had taken place in the past year) and secondary scrub forest. Locals still harvested the jackfruit, durian, rambutan, cempadek, mango, and breadfruit.  Some secondary forest species had become reestablished.  The wooded area had the most topographical relief and sloped up toward a hill to the south.  A new highway had recently been cut through the area and the patch of woods on the school site was now separate from the rest of the forest.
	Many of the students had never ventured into the local forests.  Those who had usually visited parks where wide paths allowed easy access.  Getting to the new school site to conduct the various surveys was considered high adventure by the students.

The site / general description from one of the plant survey reports (written by seventh graders)follows: 

The site had lots of construction area on the way to the forest area.  It had a very thick, dense canopy.  The dense canopy blocked off most of the sun light, causing most of the heat to stay above the trees.  The forest area contained lots of ferns, jackfruit, durians and one simple toilet by the lower end of the area.  The area was small and contained lost of bugs, mostly mosquitoes.  The grown was very muddy and had about no grass. It had lots of weeds and flowers on low plants.  The land, believed by Mr. F., once was a jackfruit and durian plantation.  The site would soon be covered in quadrats made by us explained in the procedure.  To get to the plant and quadrat area we had to climb a steep, muddy, slippery hill.

	Both classes conducting floral surveys found 26 species in their sample areas.  One group tried to determine a species-area curve.  The other class used a combination of transect and quadrat running down the slope of the hill.  Interestingly, after the school had been built and only a fragment of the original woodland remained, a seventh grade class found more than 100 species of plant. 
	The comments included by one of the first plant survey groups are illuminating. Student authors actually call the place a wilderness. A few of the comments are included here as examples.

Comments and quotes:

	Our seventh grade class to a trek through the wilderness to W. where our new school will be built.  We had many strange experiences. Students from our class had many ideas, quotes, and feelings about the nature and the trip to W.  Here are all of our quotes, stories, and feelings about our trip . . . . . .

"Fun!"
"I loved sliding down the hill and the bus rides."
"There was too much rain on the first day, but sliding down the hill was cool."
"I thought the spiders were nasty and I thought I was going to faint. Then I saw a scorpion and though my life was over.  The spiders were the worst though!"
"It's better than being in science class. Nonetheless, the trip was worth it.  The third day was the best because I saw a scorpion."
"There were lots of mosquitoes! I hated the mosquitoes, hill, mud, water, everything in general except for my quadrat."
"I liked the hill and I learned a lot about a bunch of different plants!" 
"I really liked climbing up and down the slippery hill and seeing the cool spiders.  I liked it when it rained on the first day.  I also enjoyed the bus rides!"

	The class observing animals wrote the following summary:

	In the end we saw/heard 21 species of birds and 12 different species of insects.  All together the class did a very good job on taking an animal survey.  The most common bird that we saw at the W. area was the Common Myna.  The Common Myna has an orange beak and a black body with a touch of white underneath the tail feathers.  We also found a very unique looking spider which we preserved and that is now in a glass jar.  Everyone participated and also had a great time.  In a chance to go back to woodlands, almost all of us would because we would want to see the different types of birds and animals that we did not see the first time.
	We saw different types of birds at the W. area. One of the types that we saw was a woodpecker.  We recognized it by the obnoxious noise that is was making, pecking against the tree.  Mr. F. told us that if we got really good at bird watching, we would be able to identify the different kinds of woodpeckers. Even though we were not able to, the class still felt that they had learned a lot from the experience.  Overall, the fourth period science class feel that we learned a lot from birdwatching.

	This class also included a comment on what the future of the forest ought to be with respect to the new school.

	On our trip to W. we noticed what the conditions of the fields were and we decided to take a survey of what everyone else thought should happen to Woodlands.  We asked people in our fourth period science class about what they should do about the forest at W. and many of them said that they should build the school and leave at least 5000 square meters of forest up for observing animals and plants.
	Our science teacher, Mr. F., agrees with that idea. We interviewed a total of 21 students from fourth period and 10 said to leave some forested area up.  Five people said not to build a school and leave it up just as it is for observing insects and animals and take field trips up to the area. Three people said to knock it all down and three other people said to clear a path and leave about 8000 square meters of untouched forest. Of course, there would be a door to enter the area.  Bot of us personally feel that they should leave up most of the forest and make the school smaller.

	Without being coerced, students wrote and contributed stories about the trip.  These were added at the end of various reports.  The following story accompanied the faunal survey.

A ride down the hill

	After our first day at W. when we were climbing down, everyone was carefully taking each step. K. was in front  of me and M. was behind me.  We were going down a steep, muddy part, and all of a sudden I started sliding down on my feet, standing upright!!! I slid past K. and suddenly there was a turn!  Oh! No! I didn't quite make the turn, so I fell in a bush, and got a HUGE thorn scrape up my arm!!! A. tried to help me up, but Mr. F. came to the rescue and lifted me out.  I then decided I didn't like climbing. 

Many of the comments students chose to include referred to the adventure and fun or to the discomfort.  In some, both aspects were mentioned. "I thought it was muddy, hot, and fun!" or "I hated the mosquitoes but I liked the rain and the mud." Only a few commented on the purported topics of study.
During the discussion at the teacher's conference (some years later), a recollection was shared with the group about the survey of the new school site.  One of the participants refers to a preceding comment in the discussion about being comfortable in a wild site.

AT: You were saying, PL, kids have to be comfortable in an environment before they can start working in it.
RF: Exactly. I was just thinking of that because of kids I've had in the past. When we did our survey of the new campus, I remember watching one girl. There was just a slight rise in kind of a not too rough an area, and she looked like she was just about to just fall off balance. Her name was Suzy.  I said, “Suzy, you look like you’ve never been off a sidewalk.”  And she said, “I haven’t.”

	With the establishment of the new campus, succeeding classes of seventh graders have used the school forest as a wild classroom.  Most of the studies have originated from science class. Projects have varied from individual and small group to entire class.  A recent set of projects included mapping the tallest trees in the forest and running a contest among classes to find the greatest number of kinds of plant.  The winning class found more than 100 kinds verified by pointing out specimens to a knowledgeable judge. One year short interviews were video taped with a class who selected "forest projects" from the list of possible projects that follows.

Research for any project should involve relevant print sources (3 minimum) and documented contact with an expert.  Firsthand observations, constructions, conclusions, and products are essential.

1.  Become an expert on one plant (1 / group member) growing in the school forest.  Completely describe the plant and its parts.  Identify the plant if possible (seek expert help) and include its scientific and common names (in English and local languages as appropriate).  Make sketches of plant and plant parts.  Take photographs.  If the plant is abundant (see teacher), collect, press, dry, and mount a leaf and a flower.  Include information on the natural history of the plant and any other information of interest.  Natural history observations should come from written sources and firsthand observation.  Create a poster for each plant;  the poster(s) should be durable, accurate, and informative.

2.  Create a guide to the plants of the school forest..  Include scientific and common names (where possible), a brief description--about plant and its distribution, etc., a photograph and a sketch.  Collate entries into a booklet. 

3.  Design a nature tour of the forested area on the school campus for elementary students.  Research and plan what information to share and show--this means you must consider the interesting plants and animals and the children.  Plan an activity and a story.  Canvas the lower divisions for interested classes.  Make contact and arrange to conduct your nature tour.  Write up the plan for the tour and describe the actual event.  Document your tour with photographs and comments. 

4.  Make an accurate map of the forest, showing the location of predominant plants and the large trees.  Try to include contours.  Include a legend.

5.  Survey the forest area for the presence of butterflies (adults and caterpillars).  Become an expert on the frequently seen species.  Access the presence of food plants for adults and caterpillars, and conduct a preliminary feeding study of the common species.  Submit a proposal to enhance the butterfly habitat and carry out an approved plan.  (Contact Butterfly group of the Nature Society-Singapore for advice and help.)

6.  Obtain appropriate tree species (1 / member of group) to plant in the jungle.  Research the needs of the plant, the background, and the importance.  Transplant (with approval) and tend the young trees.  Produce a guide and map (see options above) of your new introductions.

7.  Conduct a survey of various parameters of the physical environment of the school forest.  Consider physical variables and characteristics like light, humidity, temperature, soil compaction and percolation, soil type.  Work with a mapping group or produce a map to indicate the results of the survey.  Write-up of procedures and results should be included with physical map.

8.  In consultation with your RLA (reading and language arts) teacher create a collection of works that involve your aesthetic experience with the school forest.  Genres of expression could be nature essays, poetry, music, art, and/or photography.  Prepare a performance and/or a collection of original works in some medium or media as the culmination of this product.  

9.  Propose some other comparable project with a survey, an improvement, or a use of the school forest as its focus.

Students spent approximately seven hours in the field and four in the classroom. Class periods were 45 minutes long. The school forest was five minutes from the science classroom. Time in the field included familiarization and exploration, identification of questions, definition of problems, development of procedures, and gathering of data.  The interviews were conducted after students had begun collecting information but had not completed the culminating artifacts for the project.
Of the 40 groups (approximately 100 students) who chose projects, most carried out a procedure to measure some aspect of biodiversity at the level of determining number of kinds. Student projects fell into the categories organized in the following table.

Categories of forest project

Nature tours for elementary students

	Natural histories of single species	Surveys of culinary plants	Investigations of ecological relationships including symbiosis	Surveys of diversity at the level of number of kinds	

3

3	
5	
8	
19	

Forty groups were interviewed. Curiously, only in 18 were students observed to touch plants or plant material during the video taping of the interviews. Four segments are presented here as snapshots to suggest the diversity of topics and approaches students used, the commonality of students' experiences, and the parallels and paradoxes we might encounter as we try to make sense of students' words as part of our own inquiry. We must remember that the context of the interviews is that of a teacher assessing progress on an assignment.    
	In the first segment, two boys are kneeling by a tree seedling.  In the preceding year an effort had been made to increase the floral diversity in the school forest by planting rainforest tree seedlings collected from local forest reserves and agriculturally important trees obtained from a small farm the students had visited on an extended field trip to a neighboring country. Ralph and Eric have been completing a database and map of the plantings in the school forest. Their work was considered exemplary among the students' efforts to assess the plant diversity of the school forest. Eighteen other groups examined either plant or animals diversity as a primary focus. 

1.	Ralph: OK. How many branches do we have?
2.	(Both count by touching)
3.	Ralph (continues): One, two, three, four, five six, seven, eight, nine. OK, we've got nine branches.
4.	(Eric records the number; Eric begins counting leaves silently).
5.	RF:  Can you guys tell us a little bit about your project, what you've been doing and what you've been learning?
6.	Ralph:  Well, basically what we've been doing is we've been going over all the plants, seedlings, rainforest trees, and we've been recording height, the diameter around the base, the number of leaves, the number of stems, the scientific name, the common name, what family they're in like palm family, or like whatever flower family, whatever you want. And we're going to plot it on the map, and we have what Dr. F made here from a few years ago and we're going to combine these with the new trees.
7.	Eric: We've been making our table like this. (Holds up for the camera).  It shows our diameter, height, family name, scientific name, common name. And we're making a rough draft of another which has the name, number, the leaves, and the stems and we're just showing, we're just making a little record of all these trees that Dr. F. got planted.
8.	Ralph: And we're having pictures, and I'm going tonight to talk to the guy who gave us the seedlings so I can hopefully get a lot of the plant dates like when they were planted, so I can find out how old they are, so we can record the progress of how they've been growing.
9.	RF:  How many specimens are in your study?
10.	Ralph: I'd say about 40 or 50 maybe.
11.	Eric: A lot.
12.	RF: What's this one we've got right here?
13.	Eric: It's a Damar. (Dryobalanops aromatica)
14.	Ralph: This one's been recently--got knocked over.
15.	Eric: And we taped it back together. Someone was carelessly running through and stepped on it so we tried to tape it, and it looks like it's doing pretty good.
16.	Ralph: It's not brown.
17.	Eric: And it survived.
18.	Ralph: We've only found one mistake so far; we fixed that up there.
19.	RF: What kinds of thing do you feel like you've you been learning? 
20.	Ralph: Been learning a lot what plants look like like the Damar and the Shorea are pretty much the same. But one of them was marked up there as the Intsia, but we figured it was the Damar by the leaf shape and the way the branches branched off.   
21.	Eric:  So we have to observe them very, very carefully because some of them could be mistakes. Because these leaves are really close to an Intsia and it's really easy to mistake other trees.
22.	Ralph: We've got a range of things like from Mango, to Capostasia (Cecropia?),  Coffee, Shorea roxburghi, and Betel Nut Palm, and like this Damar, so we've got quite a range of things, I could keep going, but.
23.	RF: Thanks guys.   

  	Ralph's comment that the "Damar and the Shorea are pretty much the same" is consistent with the taxonomy of professional botanists. Both are classified as Dipterocarps, a predominant family of trees in Southeast Asian rainforests.
	In the next interview segment four students describe their interest in culinary plants. While their project includes a kind of list-making task like others in the diversity category, the students seem most interested in the edibility of the plants. Aisha exclaims at a new smell; Jake ends the interview by eating a leaf.  The suspected curry leaf plant is probably a wild native Clausena species rather than the frequently cultivated Murraya. The leaves of both plants yield a pungent odor when crushed.
 
1.	RF: Here's  Aisha, Minna, Jake, and---our new student--Sarah, who's been introduced to the forest right after she came. Jake, would you tell us a little bit about what your project is?
2.	Jake:  Our project will be to see how many edible plants there are in the school forest. We're going to make a recipe book. We'll take pictures of them and find recipes with all the different ingredients (waves hand around toward the surrounding vegetation).
3.	RF: What are some of the plants that you've found?
4.	Minna: We've found breadfruit, avocado, durian, papaya, tapioca, chili, coffee, banana, palm oil, lemon grass, sweet potato, limes, mangoes and a lot more.
5.	RF: Have you found some recipes?
6.	Aisha: Yeah, we found this one book that shows us recipes to like make with different kinds of herbs, and we have another book that shows you how to make recipes with fruits.
7.	RF:  Out of the list of plants that you have, how many have you had before, have you eaten before yourself?
8.	Aisha: Most of them.
9.	Minna: Almost all of them.
10.	Jake: I never tasted chiku.
11.	Aisha: I have.
12.	Minna: I've never tasted cempadek, or durian, or starfruit (looking at records).
13.	Jake: I think a lot of people are scared of durian maybe.
14.	RF: Why are they scared of durian?
15.	All (at once): Because of the smell.
16.	Jake: Maybe if they don't know it and then taste it, they like it, but it scares them off with the smell.
17.	RF:  Have you eaten Durian before, Jake?
18.	Jake: Yeah.
19.	RF: You like it?
20.	Jake: No.
21.	RF:  So you guys want to see the curry leaf?
22.	All: Yes.
23.	RF: (after moving a few meters) OK, here's the curry leaf. 
24.	Aisha: Where?
25.	RF: There.
26.	Aisha: Which one?
27.	RF: Yeah. Take a little bit and smell it, and tell me what it smells like to you.
28.	Jake: I can't smell anything.
29.	RF: Crush it.
30.	Aisha: Oh, my gosh!
31.	Jake: Cool!
32.	Aisha: That smells like a herb or something.
33.	(Jake, grinning proudly, eats a leaf.)

Once shown, the students add another species to their list. The drive to include as many plants as possible is complemented by an ambiguious mix of fascination and repulsion with extreme tastes. The names of plants that are initially strange for the expatriate student are discussed with fluency.
Sally and Regina have studied spiders and their webs.  Most students selected plants as objects of study. Their project represents one that is included in the ecological relationship category and focuses on animals. They ask a question that relates web design to kind of spider. While the basic question seems sophisticated in its compass, the students seem hesitant about offering very detailed observations. Other groups who studied spiders concentrated on developing a species list. They caught (and released) spiders for close examination and ventured farther off the path than Sally and Regina.   

1.	RF: We're here with Sally and Regina. Could you tell us a little bit about your project and what we're looking at here?
2.	Regina: We're seeing about spiders and their webs.
3.	Sally: And the question is: Do different species of spiders have different designs of webs?
4.	RF: OK, I'm shifting views, would you say that again?
5.	Sally: Our question is if different species of spider have different designs of webs.
6.	RF: And, what have you been finding out?
7.	Sally: OK, so far this is true.
8.	Regina:  And we've been looking at webs we find spiders on.
9.	RF: What are some of the different things you've seen?
10.	Sally:  Usually the bigger spiders have one flat web and the smaller spiders have (hand is making circles) a house web.
11.	Regina:  And we've seen like disks (hand makes a circle) for webs.
12.	RF: What is the biggest spider you've seen?
13.	Regina:  The Golden Orb.
14.	RF:  How big is it?
15.	Sally: (making a circle with her thumbs and forefingers of both hands) Counting the legs?
16.	RF: Yes.
17.	Sally: This big (indicating the circle she's made with her hands).
18.	RF: How many different kinds of spider are in your study?
19.	Sally: We're not sure yet.
20.	RF: Well, how many have you seen that you know are different?
21.	Sally:  Like a lot.
22.	RF: Like how many?
23.	Sally:  I don't know.
24.	RF: So what are you doing right now?
25.	Sally: Getting interviewed.
26.	RF: Getting what?
27.	Sally: Interviewed.
28.	RF: No, I mean as part of your--
29.	Regina: We're looking for other spider webs.
30.	RF: Did you see the one down by the gazebo?
31.	Both: Yeah.

	Sally and Regina's vague reference to the kinds of spider they have observed makes it difficult to decide how far they can and will proceed in addressing their question.  During the interview, their posture (arms folded) and position on the trail (right in the middle) suggest some hesitancy in approaching the spiders very closely. Perhaps fear or revulsion of spiders tempers their fascination with web design.
	A fourth interview completes the set included here to represent the work of seventh grade students in the schoolyard forest of the large, urban, expatriate school. Four boys have chosen what may be an atypical project. Only three groups out of the 40 decided to plan and implement tours for elementary students. The interview reveals several of the interests displayed in many of the other projects. The segment may also serve as a kind of mirror to our own inquiry.  Here our students design a trip to take children into a "wild" classroom. Do we see our students or ourselves? 
	Each student has a unique and fascinating story.  In this inquiry we have disguised students' names, we have lumped together hundreds, even thousands, of students we have taught in the past, and we have patched together pieces of students' thoughts, words, and actions in our attempt to understand our experience with children in wild classrooms. But each student has a unique and fascinating story. Our inquiry is not unlike a trip to the forests that embody our idea of a wild classroom. Occasionally, in the midst of our efforts to promote science and school, we stop to notice and experience something not on the schedule. In our effort at scholarship here, we stop as a single student is remembered (who represents all of our individual students). The boy called Seth had a troubled history in school; he seldom turned in work and eventually he engaged in behaviors that threatened his tenure at the school.  But Seth was incredibly talented at noticing, distinguishing, and remembering plants. His skill was without literacy but was more expert than that of many adults. Had he been born in a traditional society, we fantasize that he would have undoubtedly become a botanical shaman.              

1.	RF: We're here with Ben, Mike, Harry, and Seth and they're going to tell us a little about their forest project and take us through some of it.
2.	Ben:  We're doing a tour for 5th graders on the school forest and we're going to show them a bunch of neat little things up here like tapioca, spiders, jackfruit, trees that have been eaten alive, sugar cane, sweet potatoes and a lot of things you might eat someday. Well, here we go.
3.	Ben: (Group walks up into the forested area.) We start at the gazebo and feed them French fries made from tapioca root on these leaves right here.
4.	RF: Which is?
5.	Ben and Seth: These (touching leaf of Dillenia suffructicosa).
6.	Ben: Ones that aren't eaten.
7.	RF:  Can you show us the tapioca?
8.	Ben: Tapioca--there is a bunch over there.
9.	RF: Where?
10.	(Seth, Mike and Harry move to point out plants.)
11.	Seth: This one (touching plant confidently.)
12.	Harry: Here's an aloe patch.
13.	Ben:  Here's a nice little patch of aloe.
14.	Seth: Somebody stepped on it.
15.	Harry: This one over here's healthier.
16.	(Group moves along walk further into forest.)
17.	Ben: We come up in two groups and we show them a bunch of (inaudible).
18.	(Group still walking.)
19.	RF: Guys, show me just one example of one thing that you'll do.
20.	Ben:  This is a fishtail palm (touching a leaf) and it looks like the tail of a fish and it's the most common one in this place.
21.	Seth: Yeah, it's the most common palm in this forest.
22.	Ben: We have a spider over here.
23.	(Group still walking.)
24.	Ben: This is a remnant of a spider web.
25.	Harry: This is where people aren't very nice to the forest--people.
26.	RF: Just. OK, let's stop here just a second and just tell me basically what your tour's going to be like. You're going to feed them French fries from tapioca and then what?
27.	Ben: We're going to show them the really big spiders in here and we're going to show them the tapioca. And we're going to go up to the circle at the top and we're going to show them the lemon grass and let them crush it up so they can smell it and stuff.  It's really cool. Show them the sweet potato, the chili plants and like the figs up there and see the jalapeno peppers.
28.	RF:  OK, if you could say that there's one kind of message or point from your tour--or the thing you'd like the 5th graders to get out of it, what would it be?
29.	Ben: Even though you have a school right here, there's still in XXX a lot of biodiversity in a little forest like this.  There's a lot of plants you might never think would grow here. Things like tapioca and jackfruit, all these fruit plants, they probably think they're somewhere else but they actually grow right here in the school.
30.	Harry:  Some of these plants are from all different countries, such as the tapioca, it's not originally from XXX.
31.	Seth: Although when you eat the root, you can live off of it. Not healthily.
32.	Ben: And then we're going to do a treasure hunt just for fun and give out prizes and stuff.
33.	RF:  What's the treasure hunt? They have to find something? 
34.	Ben: Yeah, there's different note cards and they have to find note cards about what they learned.

	The four interview segments presented so far are intended to cover the kinds of project seventh graders developed for their science work in a wild area designated on the schoolyard of a large, urban, expatriate school.  The interests of the students seem typical from our view as teachers with extensive experience teaching middle school science. If anything, the students demonstrate capabilities that might be surprising. Aspects of their questions, observations, and techniques certainly resemble legitimate science. There may only be vague hints, however, of other kinds of connection they feel with wild nature.
	One year seventh grade students at the large, urban, expatriate school were given the option to produce creative writing to satisfy part of their science work.  A few students chose topics related to their experiences in the school forest. A selection is reproduced here. We think these pieces contribute to the complexity of interpreting students' responses to wild classrooms. Some pieces are complete; some are excerpts from larger works. Students have given permission to share their works with educators. As the authors they retain all rights to their compositions. 
	We think of Wordsworth's conflict in looking at the two students' poems that follow. 

Mapping Nature

by S. Bayley

Difficult process, it is.
Pick a point, a fixed reference.
Paper there.
Tape measure stretched
Draw the angle
Use the distance
To plot.
Repeat, repeat,
Capture the spirit
Of the place with
Mechanical human ways.
Map nature, but can we?
We can't control nature, never
Properly map it.
It will grow and change,
Things'll die and sprout.
It's wild area, unmappable.
But we have,
Sadly, we have.

Biodiversity is only a word

by E. Mooney
 
Biodiversity is only a word,
Only some letters,
Just thrown together.
Biodiversity is in our books,
Just printed there,
With no meaning.
Biodiversity should be un-named,
For what bunch of letters it is
Should cover so much wonder.
Biodiversity is a small ant.
It's the small ant living on large soil.
Then large soil being on giant Earth.
Bidiversity is a tiny fly,
Who creates beauty,
Who blindly helps.
Biodiversity is a vast swamp,
Full of life,
Giving a home.
Biodiversity is a tree.
This tree is part of the jungle,
The Jungle gives us shelter
Biodiversity is life.
Unless you don't know it,
It can be meaningless.
Biodiversity,
Just a bunch of letters.

	The following two poems are exceptionally mature works by V. Manglik. The young poet's voice speaks to the significance of the wild at the beginning of the 21st century. They are included in the order in which they were written. The two pieces are responses to work in the school forest. 

Jungle

Creeping and crawling over islands of abandoned fate
Where the edge of the past and the future collide.
Layers, of green drapes and silver wishes,
Hoping for yesterday and crying for tomorrow.
Slicing layers of airborne purple poison
Where the vines twirl helplessly around a finger.
Silence is the past to the deaf,
And the past of death to the hearing.
It wants to be free,
Should we let it fly?
Or die.
The jungle with intense orange and green,
With ecstatic pink and fur.
Where buzzing is life,
And hushed stillness is death.
From the shrinking of each individual,
New is born.
Death creates life.
What happens when there is too much death for life?
With the acts of deforestation,
Let there be peace on Earth.

********************

Searching for Plants

When we're done soul searching,
And the darkness is gone,
The quest for plants begins.
Dashing through the forest,
Being careful not to skip a plant,
As new ones appear from the same place,
Confusion strikes.
How do you know if you've missed them?
Gone,
Washed away with misery.
A leaf of a twig,
Creates a difference,
A brand new type of plant.
How could a simple color be a new species?
Or a new person?
Are personalities judged by color?
Or size, or shape?
The differences are who we are,
Or who we aren't.
"Sometimes what you don't do makes you who you are"
So true,
But so real.
Reality isn't true.
Truth isn't reality.
The plants talk at night.
The Macaranga doesn't talk to Jackfruit,
He's too different for her.
The stars whisper to all.
And all to rest.

	The following is excerpted from S. McGrath's "School rainforest essay."

	I had no idea that the XXX school was once on a piece of land that had such a rich diversity of flora and fauna until we went to our school rainforest.  The reason for going during class may be for scientific and mapping purposes, but every time I go there, I still look at the trees and whatever wildlife there is to see, and I am almost a little kid with the determination to know and want everything again. . . .
	The many varieties of flora also intrigue me. I often gaze up in awe at the mighty giants towering over me and wonder what kind of wildlife lurks there during the night hours. Sometimes I do not wish to know. . . .
	. . . But this rainforest at school may help others in the future realize how wonderful of a place a forest like it is. If we, the citizens of the planet Earth, wish to continue to seek a cure for one of the many serious ailments that plague our existence soon, we must act now.  If we children, the next generation, are put into contact with nature at an early age, we will realize what an important place it is for not only ow planet, but for our entire civilization.
	We should act now. Before it's too late.

	The last piece offered here is a five stanza poem by M. Murphree.

Mapping the Woods

Peering through the vine mass
One quiet grassy knoll appears
Gives me a safe spot 
To place my map

A sunny patch of dirt weeds
Makes me feel like I am in 
A tranquil world of my own

Great macaranga's look on
Dripping tree leaves
Give new life to the 
Forest floor below

Our open science logs
Welcome nature to crawl
On the smooth white surface
At any time any day

Young saplings
Grow to great heights
Smelling fragrant
Wanting to live forever
Just like us

	So far, our data from students consist of responses by seventh graders to work in a wild area (the school forest) on the site of a large, urban, expatriate school in Southeast Asia. Only particular segments have been presented here.  By way of comparison we will present next the responses to work in a wild area of sixth, seventh, and eighth graders from a small, remote, expatriate school in Southeast Asia. The trip took place in February when the Chinese New Year holiday permitted one of us to accompany the other author and his students on the excursion as a friend and consultant. There were only 11 students on the trip. Several of the students had gone on the school trip two years before to Gunung Leuser National Park in Sumatra. There students carried out surveys under the direction of European, Australian, and Indonesian scientists. That trip has been described in more detail earlier in this paper.
	After an early morning departure from the school site, a company bus carried four adults and eleven children to a remote site that had been opened only recently for natural gas exploration. A worker who had been involved in the road and gas well construction described seeing wild elephants, tigers, and various other wild species during the early stages. When the site was reached, students unloaded the bus, arranged their things, and met for a briefing. An attempt was made to record discussion, work in the field and in the temporary classroom. The purpose of the video recording was conceived at the time to document activity to show parents and administrators. Rainforest conditions made some field recordings impossible. A complete set of interviews with students about the progress of their projects was recorded; these are analogous to those presented earlier.
	The trip involved one familiarization walk up a logging trail about one to two kilometers into the forest.  A number of smaller trails extended away from the main trail. There was no evidence of motorized travel on the trail, but water buffalo tracks were in abundance. No signs of recent elephant activity was observed. The forest had been selectively logged, but primary forest species were still in evidence. Bird life was abundant and diverse. After the first walk, students discussed their observations and chose a problem or topic of interest. A second walk was conducted where students began to gather information by observation and, in some cases, by collection.  After the evening meal, students went on a night walk along the newly built motor road. A few mammals were located from their eye shine. Various frogs, toads, and insects were seen. Many thousands of moths of diverse species congregated around the lights of the gas well facility. Students made another trip to their study site in the morning and were interviewed just before packing up to return to the school.  Total time in the field was on the order of eight hours over two days.
	The initial instructions for the first walk appear in the transcript below.   

1.	PL: On this first trip we want you to go out with an open mind.  We want you to go out with your eyes open and your minds ready to look and see interesting things. All right, now the overall plan for this day and the next day is to try to ask good questions. (tape break) So today this first walk until lunch is just to jot down ideas and notice things and talk about things as we walk together in one big group which might make an interesting problem for further exploration. (camera off) Our main goal is that by this afternoon, we've thought about our exploration this morning and we decided that we might do this, and we might do this and we might do that, and we form interest groups as we come together based upon things that do interest us. And of course tomorrow is going to be spent gathering as much information as we can here in our mini-laboratory. Your job is to ask good questions, to keep your eyes open and remember to keep track of everything that you can, to write down everything that you can.
2.	Sue:  Are we going to do a project like we did last year?
3.	PL: You will be doing something. What that project is I can't exactly answer. I can see it taking many different shapes. I know I have many questions that I think are interesting here, but that's me. What we want to find out is what interests you.
4.	Sally: Are we coming back here?
5.	PL: We'll be coming back here for lunch.
6.	Sally:  No, no, no. On another trip.
7.	PL: This will be our headquarters.
8.	LL: No, in May.
9.	PL: In May we may come back here, depending on what we can accomplish this time. We have to accomplish something. We have to have some information that's valuable enough or interesting enough to make another trip worthwhile. So we've got to go out and see what we can get done in these next two days.  Any other questions?
10.	Sarah:  What do we write down?
11.	PL: We write down what we see in the field--so for now we haven't written anything. But you need to be writing down things that are interesting to you--problems, anomalies, ideas that seem to interest you so that when we come back this afternoon we can discuss our exploration.  We'll be taking notes in this room. Dr. F. and I will lead that and from that discussion hopefully we can take it from there to form projects and groups.
       
	The 11 students developed eight projects. One student had just arrived in country and had just started the school at the time of the trip; this student was not assigned a particular project. Four of the projects involved diversity at some level. In each case the diversity question was also tied to a question about time, space, or resource distribution. Three projects examined one or two species.  One looked at the distribution of a secondary forest pioneer species in relation to the availability of light. Another student investigated ant-plant symbioses in two species of plant from the same genus. The third student selected two invading, exotic species (from the same genus) as objects of study and compared their unusual behavior and charted their "movement" into the forest.  The eighth project was a survey of soil types.
	Except for the new member of the school, all the students worked comfortably in the forest.  The rough terrain, the heat, the rain, the mud, the mosquitoes, and the leeches did not deter the students from exploring the forested area and seeking out observations relevant to their studies. One of us had remarked on the students' ease in the wild during the audio taped discussion we had with teachers at the regional conference. (The hashes referred to are social running events. The hash supposedly originated among British expatriates in Malaysia before the Second World War.  A hash is a kind of poor person's hunt where "hares" lay down clues to the main trail and also to false trails and the "hounds" or "harriers" chase along trying to find the correct path. In Southeast Asia these runs are set whenever possible in rural and wild areas even when they are staged by urban groups.)
	
RF: The thing that really impressed me when I went with PL's kids last year is, and I contrast this with some my own students, is how comfortable they were.  And I thought the same thing we’ve been talking about here, that time it takes to get familiar and used to a place--you’re just assaulted with a new environment and to think you’ve got to go through all these activities at the same time is a lot to ask.  His kids--we got up there and they were just ready to go--and I wondered about it. And he explained that every weekend, because they’re in such an isolated place, the parents and the kids all go on hashes. So they’ve had a lot of experience just going through rough ground in a recreational kind of setting without being totally blown away by wild places.
 
	All eight interview segments follow. The first involves a survey of flowering and fruiting plants along the main trail.  The trail serves as a kind of sampling transect. 

1.	PL: What we're going to do now is talk about student projects. And we're going to start with Sally. Would you sort of explain first of all your problem that you were working on, the interest that you had in collecting the fruits and flowers along the trail.
2.	Sally: OK, Well I was collecting fruits and flowers of different trees along the trail to compare what they look like now to when we come back again in May or whenever we come back to see if their growth patterns change.
3.	PL: And when we returned to the trail the second time, this problem came to Sally after our first visit, first short walk I should say. We then took a second walk yesterday afternoon and then this morning, and she was able to collect some different samples. So why don't you share some of the different things that you found.
4.	Sally: This is from the--I called it tree one cause I don't really have a name--it's just the leaf and the bud of the flowers, and the flower's white. I didn't get a flower because it's too high up to reach, but you can see these are kind of starting This is from tree two, and it was a purple flower; when I press it, it kind of (lost color?) and----there, oh yeah, was five petals, but there's not five (chuckle) any more. And they were. This was a taller tree and this was kind of like a shrubby tree. And this was kind of a taller tree than looked more like a tree than a shrub. And then my third tree's a banana tree and it's a wild banana tree is what it is and they grow differently than domestic banana trees because the flowers grow up instead of hang down and the bananas have seeds in them, too.
5.	PL: So they've not been selected for no seeds, for eating-- normal bananas.
6.	Sally:  This is from tree five and it was--it wasn't--not very tall either but it was tall compared to these two. And it had these fruits on them and they kind of look like cherries, but they're harder than cherries. And I found these on the ground; they're--it looks like something ate the inside of them like a bird or a monkey or something and threw the outside part on the ground.
7.	And then this is from tree eight--it was further in, further back and it was like a really small little tree that didn't have very many leaves on it and this is the bud of the flower; I didn't see a flower still because they're not ready.
8.	PL: Any other wrap-up comments?
9.	Sally: (Shakes her head.)
10.	PL: All right, so hopefully when we come back, if we come back, when we come back, we can look to see if these are still there, if others are there that weren't there before if there are there or not there.

	Sally describes and collects.  She seems untroubled about not having names. As she details the fruits and flowers she has collected, she looks as if she remembers the particular place and specimen. 
	The next project involved two exotic species that have invaded many disturbed areas in Southeast Asia. Mimosa pudica is a creeper and Mimosa pigra is a shrub.  Both species are indigenous to tropical America. They are fascinating plants in that they exhibit sensitivity to touch; the leaves wilt upon tactile stimulation. Students often find them fascinating plants.

1.	PL: Now we're outside for this next project and I'm going to have Eric tell about his what he was working with. He had two or three ideas going with these mimosa plants so, Eric, tell us about the problem you were working with.
2.	Eric: Well, I was trying to find out how fast they recover after they close up. Like this (demonstrates). And I'm also finding out how far they've invaded into the forest.
3.	PL: All right now, let's go back to that first problem, how quickly they recover after they close up and see that this guy hasn't recovered yet, it's still closed up. Can you give us an idea, what did you find out, how long did it take this creeper, this mimosa creeper to recover.
4.	Eric: For a creeper, it takes about 3 to 5 minutes to recover. On a pigra , it takes about 8 to 9 minutes.
5.	PL: We'll go over now and video tape that next. Now is that an average, did you do several trials on that or how many?
6.	Eric: I did it several times.
7.	PL: So it that--have you got an actual average yet or are you still working; lets go ahead and get an average of that. Let's go over and look at this (moving, inaudible, touching Mimosa pigra specimen) hmm, portions of the leaf close up. This is the pigra, the shrub. Now what are you finding on the shrub?
8.	Eric: On the shrub it takes longer to close and recover. And as you can see, there's ants all over this and it doesn't affect it.
9.	PL: About how long does it take to recover? 
10.	Eric: Eight or nine minutes.
11.	PL: Now if you've got extra time, I know you didn't get to test this tree much because it's not out in the forest as you might have the other.  So you might want to continue the testing this guy so you can get an average of that.  An average of four to five maybe 10 trials if you've got time for that before we leave. Now that's what he did partially here and partially out in the forest.  Another idea that Eric was working on was about the invasion of the mimosa.  Can you tell us about that?
12.	Eric:  Well, I made a map of where we started.  Here's the beginning and we walked all the way up here (pointing). And here are all the mimosas on the side. And we went all the way up the trail to where it forked off to the side and I couldn't find any more after that. 
13.	PL: Any ideas how these got up in there or what could have carried them from the main road down here to way up into the forest?
14.	Eric:  Well, I found many water buffalo tracks and they could spread the mimosa as well.
15.	PL: Like in the manure or something.
16.	Eric: Yeah.

	Eric tackles two problems. One compares a measurable variable in each species. Once he became interested in the mimosa, he noticed that its appearance diminished along the forest trails. We wonder how he conceives of the plant. Its behavior in time and space seem to suggest animate movement making its name as a mimic particularly appropriate. Eric reveals little about how he feels toward the mimosa.
	In the next interview Bob explains how he used the main trail and the side trails to assess the incidence of a particular pioneer species.  Though he has no measures of a change in light intensity, he does have distance from the main trail. Increasing distance from the anthropogenic opening in the forest may well correlate with amount of available light.  He also developed a method for counting easily recognizable trees. Whether this method gives a fair count on both the wide and the narrow trails is not clear. The availability of light drives the dynamics of the rainforest; Bob's hypothesis about the distribution of the Macaranga species may have some plausibility.

1.	PL:  I'm going to have Bob explain his project which came to us yesterday afternoon. First I should say, here--Bob, hand me that leaf.  I was out walking this trail a couple of weeks ago and I saw this huge leaf and I thought to myself, "Wow, where did this huge leaf come from." I looked up and there was this whole tree of huge leaves and said, "This is interesting." And so as the students came back yesterday afternoon, Bob noticed this same huge leaf. Bob, why don't you take it from there and explain what your project, your question and project are about.
2.	Bob: What I'm doing is counting the number of trees, the Macarangas, that are in one area and as I go deeper into the trail, there's less trees. And they just wouldn't invade. Where there's taller trees, they don't get enough sunlight so there's not as many. And when there's an open area, they grow really fast and there's no big trees to take the sunlight.  And these big leaves need a lot of sunlight and rain.
3.	PL: So your proof, not proof, just a theory that we had, can you give us some numbers, like for example, how many trees were we able to estimate or count by estimation as we first entered to the first spot where they were really densely packed. (Pointing to a place on Bob's map.)
4.	Bob: Forty or 50 on the main trail.
5.	PL: Describe exactly, how did we count those?
6.	Bob: Well, we just estimated and looked around.
7.	PL: The circumference and just turned around to count those that were visible. And then we compared our answers. And then give us some idea of numbers as you came off  on this logging trail, but it was a much smaller trail. This trail is a main artery; this one is a side trail that kept getting smaller and smaller and smaller as we went across several hills and valleys.
8.	Bob:  Well, at the start there were 10 to 15 trees.  As we went farther, three to five.  And up to where we stopped, there was one or two trees.
9.	PL: Now I see you did some counting this morning and I see the same pattern. I wasn't with you on these. But we go from 15 to 10 trickling down to eight and to five. So as you go further and further into the trail, less and less light, less and less trees.  So your theory, your hypothesis or explanation at this point is that light and a lot of open area is necessary for these plants to pioneer, to sort of get their foot in. 

	In the interviews, we must take note of our own roles, especially when we want to understand our own motivations, rationalizations, and orientations. Are we acting as interpreters, inquisitors, instructors, or interested colleagues? Do we attempt to clarify for the sake of the interviewees or the parents, administrators, and teaching colleagues who will view the tapes later? Do we enjoy the questions, the problems, the science? What will we remember of the projects years later? What will our students remember? Are we facilitating Nabhan's wish or are we indulging in our own fantasies? 
	Judy, whose interview is next, has found the diversity of forest fungi fascinating. She has very seriously approached her project like a treasure hunt and has carefully categorized her finds. She was very observant and would probably have been successful using an advanced taxonomic guide. Her approach is phenomenological in that she speculates on the fungus she finds rather than on life cycles or development.

1.	PL: Now, this is Judy. And she's going to tell us about here project. Judy, walking up the trail yesterday, a logging trail, saw on fallen wood and just in the soil many different types of fungus and many different shapes. So without me saying too much more, why did this project interest you, why did it catch your eye? And then tell us a little bit about the work you're doing and what you're collecting.
2.	Judy: Well, fungus, I think, well, fungi, is sort of interesting, is interesting to me because of so many different shapes and sizes and colors. And I kind of wanted to see how many different kinds I could find. And so in the rain forest, I went and I looked for as much fungi as I could. And a lot of them are found off the side of the trail or right beside it.  And I wrote down how much light it was getting and what it was growing on. Most of them were growing off of dead sticks. But this one, I couldn't find out what kind of species it was, I don't know, because maybe it's really unordinary. It used to be a lot bigger and it just sitting on the ground and I guess it was using the nutrients from the dead leaves instead of a dead stick.
3.	PL: Did it get smaller when you picked it up, you mean, shriveling in size?
4.	Judy: No, I only took part of it.
5.	PL: Oh, I see. So there's a lot more to it.
6.	Judy: Uh huh. Um, I tried to find the, uh, what their species kind of was, what class they're in, and I looked in this book to see if they matched up a little bit (small field guide) and I found that number four, this one and this one were (inaudible) um, because they've got like a cup shape and this kind of like a funnel, um they say that it's really hard to classify fungus because there's a lot of it and different kinds so I had a bit of a hard time trying to find their class.
7.	PL: So you saw most of this growing on the wood that had been cut along the trail side and that's another interesting aspect of her study was looking at the decomposition process that goes on. How many total ones did you get one more time?
8.	Judy: Uh,13.
9.	PL: And how many did you originally think you were going to find when we originally talked about this yesterday?
10.	Judy: The first time I saw, well like when we went exploring in the rainforest, I only saw three and I expected to see about 20 or maybe 50.
11.	PL: What would you say now after having done what you've done, how many would you expect to see if you spent another equal amount of time up there?
12.	Judy:  Probably like twice or three times the amount; there's a lot of different kinds of fungus.

	Stacy and Jane are interviewed next. They attempt to develop a set of techniques for quantifying leaf diversity in terms of leaf size.  It is interesting to note their explanation of sampling and randomizing.

1.	PL: All right, Stacy's going to talk with us about her problem; she and Jane worked together on the trail but on different problems. So, Stacy, tell us about your interest, what caught your eye as we walked along the trail yesterday and the problem you worked on.
2.	Stacy:  There were a lot of dead leaves and lots of dying leaves all on the ground when we walked on the trail and I thought it would kind of be interesting to see how many different leaves were in a certain area. 
3.	PL: And so tell us about your procedure and then we'll talk about the results that you got.
4.	Stacy:  Uh, we started at the bridge that was just off the road and then we went down past camp A which is here (pointed to a map she has made) and then right there where camp B was and that was our distance and it was 297 meters. Then we went just down the trail and we walked along the trail and we picked up leaves that we thought were different from the other one and we put them in the bag and we did this two times and here's the first batch that we got and here's the second batch.  And they we went and washed them and compared them. 
5.	PL:  How many total did you pick up?
6.	Stacy:  For batch B we did 16?
7.	PL: How many were there in  A? 19? Did you tell me 19 yesterday? 
8.	Jane: These are from yesterday, but we didn't count them yet.
9.	Stacy: (counts) 19. 
10.	PL: Nineteen and 16, 35.  Now of these 35 do you think there are 35 different leaves or are some of these the same?
11.	Stacy: Some of them are the same. Like this one and this one are the same. And like this one and this one are the same. But this one's dead. And 
12.	PL: How many different ones? I mean you may not have counted them yet, just an estimation how many of them are different?
13.	Stacy:  A lot of them are really different. Cause we only have one that are the same. I think all of them are different from each other.
14.	PL: Was that more than you originally expected or less? I mean because you were only picking those up if they were right on the actual trail, right? Not off the trail or just off to the side, but those that were laying right on the trail.  Now if we were to come back in three months to compare. This information might be useful  in several ways.  But tell us what we might do with this information if we came back to do this over.
15.	Stacy: Uh. We could see if there are any more of the same leaves.
16.	PL: We're going to switch to Jane and Jane and Stacy did work together but on different problems. Jane, describe your problems and kind of  how you went about doing it.
17.	Jane: Mine was the same as Stacy's, but hers were on the ground and mine were in the trees. But I saw if they were big, medium, and small leaves. And we--
18.	PL: Small is like how big?
19.	Jane:  Small is about the size of the palm of your hand and smaller. (gestures with her hands, tracing perimeter with left using right as comparison leaf). Medium one is just bigger than your hand and the bigger one is way bigger than your hand.
20.	PL: Were you looking just on the trail like Stacy or were you just looking up in the air at the leaves.
21.	Jane: I did 2 different things. The first thing, I, we of just tried to just look at them and count them as we went along.
22.	PL: So up in the air and to the sides and everywhere.
23.	Jane: We tried to count all of the trees.
24.	PL: What was the second way?
25.	Jane:  The second way was we took we went every ten paces and then we stopped and one of us would twirl, spin around with our finger pointing out and our eyes closed and the other one would shut their eyes and would say, "Stop." Then we'd point at the tree that we had stopped on and we saw if they had medium, small, or big leaves.
26.	PL: So that was sort of a random way of just whatever, wherever you were pointing when the other person said stop, it was that sized leaf that you counted. That's interesting. Well, share those results with us, would you?
27.	Jane:  Well, the first time when I just tried to look at all of them, I got, I saw 25 big trees, 24 medium leaves, and 22 small leaves.
28.	PL: And how about today?
29.	Jane: And today we did some different things. We did it, OK, this is every 20 paces.  I saw five big ones, two medium, and three small ones. And then I did every 10 paces and I came up with eight big ones, five medium ones, and 11 or seven small ones.
30.	PL: Now have you had a chance to figure out the percentage, the percentages yet of those?
31.	Jane: No.
32.	PL: Well, that's what I think I'd want you to do next and let's see how those three different trials compare. And it won't be real hard, just count the total number and divide that, the smalls to the total, the medium to the total, and the other things, you can do that. Well, I can see how this information also might be useful if we come back later, but what do you think, how do you see it being useful.
33.	Jane: Well, I wanted, first I thought, well, there's a lot of different kinds of leaves and I wanted to know if most of them would be bigger or if most were smaller than that. 
34.	PL: I guess Macaranga, I know you guys worked with that in class, that's a really, that ended up being the biggest leaf. Do you think that there are any bigger leaves than this out in the rainforest? 
35.	Jane: Yeah, there were some of those, this big (hold arms in big circle.)
36.	PL: But I mean different kinds of trees
37.	Stacy: We found banana leaves, but we didn't think we should put them down because they were still kind of attached to the trees. 

Again, we notice and ponder the teacher's role. What do Stacy and Jane make of the numbers they have obtained from their sampling procedures? They offer no hypotheses as to why leaf size might vary nor do they suggest that certain size categories predominate over all.  For the interview, they do lay out their leaves in two rows, along a gradient of size. They seem to recognize individual leaves with more interest than they do the numerical patterns of their survey.
The moths that congregated around the air compressors intrigued Hal and Vicky. The creatures were incredibly numerous and diverse. The gas well facility serves as a giant moth trap. Evidence of moth diversity was negligible in the forest. The contrast in moth abundance between the man made environment and the forest created an interesting situation for a wild classroom.  An intrusion in the wild actually created on of the more spectacular opportunities for observing the wild.  In many ways, the moth study embodied a significant paradox of the trip. The road that carried us into remote forest will in all likelihood lead to its demise.  Hal and Vicky wonder where the moths came from and what attracted them to the site.

1.	PL: What we're going to do is kind do it like an interview format and we'll ask you to share your interest and the problem that you were working on and some of the different ideas that you came to.  Hugh and Vicky are going to tell us a little about their project which has to do with moths. And this is probably a good place to record since you can show the air compressors out there. Hal or Vicky, would you tell us to the camera what interested you and the problem that you've been working on?
2.	Hal: Well, when we first got here the thing that really interested me is that we went out to the air compressor over here and we looked and we saw hundreds, literally hundreds of moths. And when we finally did get around to counting them yesterday, we counted 239 moths. And that's what got me excited about this project.
3.	PL: Two hundred and 39 moths and how large was the area they were in?
4.	Hal: It was in an area that was 12 meters by 7.3.
5.	PL: (camera focused on air compressors) This is the area Hal was collecting in. You can see that it's not all that large so to collect 239? 
6.	Hal: Yeah.
7.	PL: Two hundred thirty nine moths in such a small space seems really unusual because when you walk out in the rainforest you certainly don't see that many moths in such a small area. So what's, go ahead with the problems, some of the ideas you had.
8.	Hal: One of problems that I wanted to see was how many moths are there in the day time versus the night time versus some time in the afternoon. And I wanted to see if the time mattered depending on how many moths were there. And I was also just amazed at how many different kinds of moths there were, in the area, that we counted.
9.	Vicky: Another problem that we had was we were wondering if what moths were attracted to. Were they attracted to the air compressors? We couldn't really figure that out because there's not really any way to test it.
10.	PL: We should have gone out there last night during the power failure and saw if all of them had flown off. Of course, that power failure occurred at three in the morning so that wasn't practical. So what, how did you guys spend your time today; explain this business of what are all these plastic bags here for. What all have you been doing?
11.	Vicky: OK, before there's were lots of moths there so we cleared them off. So we came out that night, I think it was around 7:05 and there were a certain amount of moths. So we were wondering if we came back about half an hour later and there were 28 moths. (Hal speaking softly at the same time.)
12.	Hal: Twenty five.
13.	Vicky: Yeah.
14.	PL: This is already after you 'd cleared the 239?
15.	Vicky: Yeah.
16.	Hal: So 25 more moths had come during the time.
17.	Vicky: And in another half hour there were even more moths.
18.	Hal: Twenty three.
19.	Vicky: Twenty three moths. So today we came out and there were more moths than that. 
20.	Hal: AT 7:20 this morning, we counted 40 moths. At 7:30 we counted 51 moths. 
21.	Vicky: Last night.
22.	Hal: No, we said that this morning. At 8:55 we counted 55 moths. And our last count, our most recent count was at 9:30 and we counted 56 moths.
23.	PL: And why are they all in bags like this?
24.	Vicky: Today what we did is we took, we sorted all of them, moths into their kinds. Like here's one you can see. Some of them there was five of a kind. This one has a whole (?) of its kind. Can't show you (mumble).
25.	PL: Which one had the most? I mean.
26.	Vicky: This guy had the most.
27.	PL: How many are there in there?
28.	Vicky: Five, I think, four or five.
29.	PL: Five out of 56?
30.	Vicky: Yeah, and uh, so we took all 5 of them in the same bag because they're the same kind. We sorted all of them in kinds and this is one of the kinds.
31.	PL: Can you hold that up for the camera?
32.	Vicky: It was our largest and we both think maybe our most spectacular. We named him "Shapeful" because he has a triangle right here, a circle here, and a triangle and a circle on his other wing.
33.	PL: OK, so if you had more time to investigate, what other kinds of things would you like to look at if we were to come back up here--with moths.
34.	Vicky: We would like to go out in the forest at night, would there be as much moths, would we find as much moths?
35.	PL: What do you mean, would you like to test the theory of light, for example?
36.	Vicky: Yeah, maybe we'd like to test the theory of light.
37.	PL: How would you do that?
38.	Vicky: We would set up a lantern.
39.	PL: A light tent or something like that.
40.	Vicky: Or we might want to test the sound because the air compressor makes so much humming we all complained (?).
41.	PL: So we could maybe try to imitate that.
42.	Vicky: Yeah, we could record that sound. 
43.	PL: Record that sound and take it out into the rainforest and put up another collection cloth and see it they'd come to that. That sure is interesting because I've never seen this many moths anywhere and certainly not this kind of variety. They're really beautiful.

Hal and Vicky systematically collected the moths they found near the air compressor. They tried to decide if the numbers of moths visiting the compressor changed with respect to the time of day.
Anousha's is the final interview to be presented here.  She listened to a well-known story of symbiosis told about the plant species, Macaranga triloba, and the ant genus, Crematogaster, on the first familiarization walk in the forest. Anousha surveyed what she thought was the M. triloba but discovered later that she had included two species of Macaranga. She was also interested in the fact that many of the specimens she examined also showed evidence of leaf damage from herbivorous insects. She wonders about the quality of the protection the ant symbionts supposedly provided to the host plants. Her project is impressive for us as science teachers because she distinguishes between similar plant species, she identifies a single species of ant inhabiting both Macarangas, and she challenges an oft-repeated natural history tale from her observations.

1.	PL: Anousha's going to tell us next about her project.
2.	Anousha: First I did a problem of well there is a story that said that ants, the ants in the Macaranga tree protected the tree from other insects. And so I did a study and found out that it's not very likely that they actually protected the tree because I counted a tree and it had 33 leaves. And out of 33 leaves, 13 of them were eaten or had holes in them.  And so I don't think it's really possible that the ants are there to protect the tree. So 1/3 of the tree had been eaten already. And then I found out that there were actually 2 Macaranga  trees that I was looking at. There was one with no red nodes on it (get sample out of bag) and there was another one with red nodes on it. See right there.  And so they're different kinds of plants and right here the leaves have little red dots on them. And so they're actually different, but the ants that live in them are the same.
3.	PL: We wondered that yesterday. How do you know they're the same?
4.	Anousha:  Because I looked at them through the microscope and all the patterns on their bodies are the same. 
5.	PL: So far then we think they're the same? We're going to look more in the microscope on Monday back in the lab.
6.	Anousha: Yeah. And they get in through the holes 
7.	PL: Show the holes. The holes in the stem. 
8.	Anousha: (inaubible; holds up sample)
9.	PL: How many ants are in there, Anousha, like two or three or hundreds and hundreds?
10.	Anousha: Um, there's probably up to a hundred.
11.	PL: A lot of ants.
12.	Anousha: Most of them are still inside there (the stem).
13.	PL: This is a really interesting project simply because the farther we went with it the more questions we had to ask. But Anousha did a great job in sticking with her questions and getting some evidence she could count and I think we've at least got some initial answers. And I'll be excited to come back up here and do some more work with this. 

With the interview describing Anousha's project we have offered a diverse set of student responses to school-based activities in wild classrooms. We have not yet included direct solicitations from students about their experiences in the wild. Except for the extra comments on the new school site survey and the creative writing submissions, students' interactions about wild classrooms were tied explicitly to their study topics. Although the number of responses is small, we would like to include the results of a recent request for students' opinions and recollections.  One of us contacted by email some of the students who had gone on the forest trips to Gunung Leuser or to Pase in Northern Sumatra (the trip cited in the video interviews). Five students responded to the following questions:

Our topic, "Wild Classrooms," is about the various field trips that he and I have taken with our students, and what value they have had educationally.  If you wouldn't mind, please answer a few questions about the field trips we took while you were at XXX. 
1. Did you like taking field trips in Indonesia? If so, why? If not, why? 
2. What do you recall most about your experiences? 
3. What was your favorite part of this field trip? 
4. Our field trips were often difficult and uncomfortable. Hot, humid weather, torrential rains, primitive living quarters, getting stuck in muddy roads, and biting insects were just some of the discomfort we had to put up with. Looking back at this, how do you feel about the discomfort you endured? Do you think this has a place in a science field trip?

Answers from various students follow:
	
•	From Stacy
1. 	I enjoyed the field trips in Indonesia far more than probably any field trip I'll ever go on again. They were exciting and gave me a much better feel for what we were studying instead of going to say a museum. It was hands-on field work and it made the projects so much more fun. 

2. 	I remember the Pase rainforest the best because it was the first time I'd gone on a trip to the rainforest overnight. I liked the night walk the best because it was scary and we learned how to find animals at night by shining our flashlights into their eyes. 

4. 	The rain, and hard conditions were what made the trips unique. I think it was important because most people don't realize how hard it is to live in the rainforest and it gives kids a better understanding of the rainforest as it really is. 

•	From Vicky
1. 	I liked the field trips in Indonesia. They were fun because they were out in the wild, not just to a museum. We really experienced a lot. 

2. 	My favorite was to Pase. I remember walking through the rainforest, sleeping in the hot and hard floor, then trying to move out side and sleeping in an ant trail. 

3. 	My favorite part was working the things that went wrong, and the hardships. Trying to be comfortable in an uncomfortable place, and getting stuck in the mud. 

4. 	I thought that the discomfort made it all the better. It made it seem so realistic. 

•	From Anousha
1. 	Yes, I enjoyed the field trips we took in Indonesia, because we didn't just study and hear about the places and wildlife living there we also got to experience it. It gave us more insight of what we were learning. It was also fun actually being out there, and studying animals that you could see and hear. 

2. 	I recall the environment around me,and all the animals I saw around there. 

3. 	It depends what field trip your talking about. But the field trip in the rainforest. I liked all the plants and trees that had been there for hundreds of years. It made you feel like you were so young and it makes you think back to the past years when the trees were small. You start to imagine what the land must of been like back then. 

4. 	Definitely, it makes you even more involved in a way that you're enduring with what living things in that place live with. I think the discomfort that we felt in our field trips makes the field trips more real, and a lot different from the classroom. 

•	From Brenda
1. 	Yes, because they were fun and we got to go to the jungle and stuff. 

2. 	The hiking and the walks and the nights that we spent there and the cooking that we had to do. 

3. 	Going out on the walks and in Gunung Leuser Park and then catching of the turtle killers and the boat rides and the swimming. 

4. 	It wasn't that bad and it was kinda fun. Not really, you just have to not complain, or if they were gone, then the whole environment would be different. 

•	From Charles
1: 	I was never really impressed by them or had the best time of my life. To be honest there were not many places we could go, but that one time we went to that brick factory like place and my leg sunk into some mud, I enjoyed that one. I can't really remember much. 

2:	I recall always being bit by bugs and being in uncomfortable situations. 

3: 	One of my favorite parts was when we went to that national park and slept there. We went on these boats in a river, went swimming, and caught some illegal poachers catching turtles and fish to sell. 

4: 	When I do look back all I wonder is why I did that, now I just can't be bothered to do something like that. I think it would have a place in a physical science field trip. 

•	From Jill
1. 	I did like taking field trips in Indonesia, because they were to places so out of the ordinary. I was so used to the regular regimen of the fire station and various museums and the occasional park at the end of the year. But in Indonesia, we took field trips into 
the jungle, or even that class study area we had last year, which was just down the street. How many field trips in the States take the students into the middle of a kampung? 

2. 	I recall the freedom we were given with our projects. It was nice to be able to choose an area to study that interests you, and not just what we happened to be studying at the time. 

3. 	My favorite part was the evenings we spent in the room we stayed in, when we would talk and take pictures of each other and discuss some of the things that had happened. 

4.	The discomfort I endured seemed worse at the time than it really was, for one thing. You probably remember me as a real city slicker on that trip to Pase? I think the hardship does have a place in a scientific field trip because it seems a little pointless to be out studying the jungle and then go stay in an air conditioned room all to yourself with a marble shower and stuff like that. If the living conditions and roads were wonderful, the equipment to build it would have ruined the area you were studying. The discomfort is part of the experience. 

	What can be gleaned from the student responses? None of the five mentions a particular project, study, concept, or species except for releasing the turtles confiscated from poachers on the Gunung Leuser trip.  Although the experience of seeing animals in the wild is noted, no particular wild animal is named. Several students say they value the hardships and discomforts of the trip.  Four mention rainforest trips as favorites. Seen in this particular way, the comments of the students in the survey of the new school site are similar.  This theme of finding value in the general experience of trips including the hardships arises as well in the discussions of teachers. 

Wild classrooms discussed with teachers. 

	One of us (PL) wrote the other in our ongoing email dialog:

Last year, when we visited Pase, we tried yet another approach to fieldwork. After an exploratory walk through the forest, we asked students to identify problems and observations that interested them. Next, we tried to help each student devise their own questions and methodology for field research. During two days of pouring rain, students worked to gather information relevant to their areas of interest. Some were more interested or successful than others. In follow-up work, students tried to put together puzzle pieces from their work in the field. However, few were able to bring closure to their work. While most made interesting initial observations, most were unable to unravel the riddles of forest. We came back with more questions than answers, and though we spent another week debriefing in the classroom, I can't say that most students felt they had finished their work. I know I felt our work had just started. Unfortunately, the prevailing social and political climate prevented our return to nearby Pase. What lesson was learned? Did the knowledge (or appreciation) gained from this experience surpass that that might have been gained through a "worksheet" encounter of the Pase forest? In the end, can we reconcile the loose ends from an open-ended, inquiry approach with the inevitable lack of closure that may otherwise result? Certainly from the standpoint of authenticity, the Pase experience wins over the worksheet, but what are we to make of our learning? Can we really hope to provide closure to something as
wild as a rain forest? Is that the lesson we seek?

A review of our dialog reveals several persistent themes. For PL the question of expectations dominates and the seemingly straightforward question "What expectations do we have for our field trips?" is addressed early in the email exchange:

Before we ever get off the school ground for a field trip, we are confronted with various expectations. Our students have expectations --some more realistic than others-- based upon previous field trips and time spent outside the classroom. Student expectations are not always founded with the best educational experience in mind, but they may have some validity nonetheless. We teachers also have expectations in mind for a field trip. We have educational objectives in mind when we plan a trip, but we often have other expectations as well. We may want our students to experience a night in the rain forest, for example, or to snorkel on a coral reef, or simply to have a good time with other students outside the classroom. We may also have expectations as to the type of product our students will bring back from a field trip. Others also have expectations of field trips. Administrators, for example, generally expect us to have some sort of educational justification for field trips, and they may very well request final products (e.g., bulletin board displays, writings, presentations) to show that students have "brought something back." Parents also have expectations of our time out of the classroom, varying from the conservative "Why should my child be out of the classroom? Learning occurs best in a chair with pencil and paper!"  to a more liberal extreme: "Take him, he's your responsibility for a week!"
In my experience, parents are not as likely to require an educational rationale or product to justify the time spent away on a field trip. Their child's enthusiastic narrative is often enough to convince many parents. If students happen to learn something along the way, so much the better. These expectations guide (bind?) our thinking and planning as we prepare for our field trips, but I wonder, should they? Isn't a trip spent in the forest worth it for its own sake? Does a field trip into the wild classroom have intrinsic value separate from our educational goals and objectives?
Should we even aim at "bringing something back" from our field trips, or is the experience itself justification enough?

	The thread continues in another exchange:

At a more basic level than our expectations are our beliefs. Our beliefs are fundamental assumptions that may or may not be associated with the educational objectives we state for a field trip. For example, I may believe children develop a mystical bond with the rain forest, or I might believe that students best experience nature if they are surrounded by nature. Our beliefs are largely intangible value judgements. Our fundamental assumptions, however, may never be stated. Rather, we teachers have a special language that we use to justify our field trips; this language is coded as an educational rationale of learning objectives and performance outcomes. If necessary, we throw in "products of learning" as pretty gift wrap on our field trip package, but I think we do field trips because we believe in them. I ask myself:  "Do I believe that a field trip is a valuable experience for its own sake?  Is there intrinsic value in any field trip? in any field trip to "wild classrooms"?  Do I create educational rationale to convince myself (NOT!) or to convince others that our fundamental assumptions are valid? If we are firm in our beliefs, won't we beg, borrow, or steal to attain them?"

The theme of conflict between external expectations and intrinsic values struck a strong chord with other teachers when we posed the topic to them at the regional teachers' conference. The session was full with 40 or so teachers and administrators from expatriate schools in Southeast Asia. 

1.	MB: As PL knows I've taken a lot of students up into the Northern Areas of Pakistan --the mountains there--on weeklong treks. We always wrestled with this very topic.  How do we validate taking a group of kids for a week missing school and going off on this adventure?  And Paul was there also and we wrestled with this and there was always a question of how do you validate this what do you do with the kids what are they going to get out of it what product and we always came up with some kind of product but deep down just being there was the value. These students have a lifelong memory, they wrote about it in their college essays, they wrote about it in English, no one asked them to these experiences just drew it out of them.  and so you didn't have to go into an adventure like that with preconceived ideas that I'm going to gather this data or this information. Just being out there was the inspiration.
2.	NT:  You know, what was the motivation for searching for the product or the justification? Was it your own or you had you already resolved it in your mind it had value but you had to feel like to admin or to parents you had to supply that what was your motivation?
3.	MB:  Yes, exactly--we had projects where students were supposed to looking at the people and to learn something about the women's roles in certain areas beforehand or something about the geology, the astronomy--we had lists of projects--and they could choose through those projects.
4.	NT: But those projects to satisfy whom?
5.	MB: To satisfy the administration.
6.	(laughter)
7.	PL: I'm glad you said that, MB.
8.	(more laughter)
9.	MB:  When it came down to actually to making the kids accountable and turning their things in, I really de-emphasized that.  And, yes, they did have to, they had to present, but not in a big, long formal way--no huge reports--just a short sharing session with the group or a poster with their photos as they related their projects.  That was enough.
10.	PL: I know I've felt guilty of this very thing getting so wrapped up on the gift wrapping around the package that if you're not careful you miss the package. Which is--going out with Grandpa and not having any expectations or maybe I don't want to say it that strongly but at least not have every moment dictated that you're doing this and you're doing that.
11.	NT:  Seems like there has to be some planned free time--some scheduled un-planned time because those are the things and moments that are special.
12.	(several voices hard to discern words)
13.   MB:  If it's too structured, you miss the spontaneous experience.
	
	Other teachers offered specific examples to illustrate their understanding of the issue. One teacher described a situation where field trips were limited in the school and thus competitions arose to secure desired venues. Formal rationales had to be developed. This teacher explained how she valued the inarticulate, experiential component above what she considered to be a substantive justification:

And our justification for it the educational benefit was a service project--really quite (outstanding?). But to see those kids overcome their fear of leeches--to overcome these fears! But to see these kids playing in the waterfalls just being free in nature was so worthwhile! It was an incredible experience--just the sense of freedom and appreciation. And it was well worth it--you could justify this trip as a service project very well--but it was just incredible they loved it.

	Our third video tape records a multi-partied effort to make nature (and wild places) accessible to the visually handicapped citizens of a large city in Southeast Asia. The tape includes an outing to a rustic, rural island as well as on-site research with a number of consultants from a private service agency, a non-governmental conservation organization, the national parks, the large, urban, expatriate school, and the local school for visually handicapped children. A teacher (SL) of the blind who is visually handicapped herself was interviewed for ideas about the trip and how to make a permanent trail educationally useful. Though not recorded in this interview, the teacher coined the phrase, "protected danger," to describe the kind of experience she wished for her students. The interview was recorded on the bus ride back from the nature outing and follows in an edited version:

1.	MC: We are going to try to introduce the idea to another school so that the school children can try to get involved and help the visually handicapped children in Jakarta, and I'd like to interview you if I could on the video.
2.	SL: OK. Then we can arrange.
3.	MC: That would be nice. Yes. Will you be joining us.  Maybe you can come with Mr. Lim? Was this your first time to go to Kebatu today? 
4.	SL: Yeah.
5.	(bus stopping--inaudible conversation)
6.	MC: Oh, you're a teacher? So you know our plan. What was your first impression of the trail?
7.	SL. I think it's very good, very educational. I brought back some leaves to show my pupils. Some leaves and things.
8.	MC: Excellent.
9.	SL: What are the trees there? What fruits can be found there?
10.	MC: Do you think the trail is going to be a good support for the school children so they can take the field trips there once we get the plaques into place? Then the visually handicapped children can go and study there like hands-on. It can be an experience for children outside the science classroom. Would you be able to help us because our plan is to make a guidebook, a more educational guidebook to match the syllabus and the curriculum so that what you teach in the classroom, we could support on the trail with information. So we need to look at the school units, what they study so that they can understand. You can teach the idea at the school, and then they can go out on the trail and see it in reality. Can you tell me some of the good things you thought or some of the bad--some of the areas we need to work on? What about the boats?
11.	SL: The boat is a good experience because it's quite rocky and quite shaky (gestures with hand). So for my blind children to be able to know a little bit about how the bumboat moves because they can't see. They depend on feeling. So the boat is good; it's a good experience for them.
12.	MC: Was it easy to get on? Do you think we managed it well?
13.	Another VH: You need a better gangway that's sloping.
14.	SL: Yeah for the children. But I think it's OK. In fact I prefer them to go like what we just did just now. Then they can know how other people go. We don't do anything special for them. So that they can have the actual experience of the whole thing.
15.	MC:  That's good to know. When you got on the trail, the first part is agriculture and the second part is a wild area. Which one did you think is the best? 
16.	SL: I think the wild area.
17.	MC: The wild area?
18.	SL: Yes. You don't get it here, whereas you get it at Kebatu.  I mean the rocky path (gestures with hand in the same manner as the boat rocking), going through the jungle, the rainforest. That was good.
19.	MC: That was quite good.
20.	SL: Yes, and the fruit trees. I think it's quite good for them to get to know where the fruit grows.

	The visually handicapped teacher from the host country points to some of the same aspects of experience as expatriate middle schoolers and experienced, expatriate teachers. She does discuss curriculum a bit later in the interview, but her primary focus is on the protected danger she would arrange for her students. And like the seventh graders who chose to investigate culinary plants in the school forest, the teacher mentions the fruit trees. 
We find ourselves caught in the paradox of the poet who advises that we quit our books.  We are science teachers, where is the science in our wild classroom? No one in the teacher discussion mentions specific "lessons" about wild nature to be taught by Nature in wild classrooms. We two authors, science teachers who profess great experience, rarely discuss in our extended dialog the particulars of wild nature. Oddly, the particulars are relegated to the sham-like rationalizations offered to administrators, parents, and colleagues to justify trips to wild classrooms as a part of school science.
	One of us (PL) asked the other at the teachers' conference the following question:

PL:  We work a lot in a class study area outside and I mean a lot.  The FAST 1 course really does present it so that my kids are fairly comfortable outside and yet somehow that discomfort and that adversity is also part, MB, of a successful trip. And this leads to a question I have for RF or for anybody, for D or for anybody that would like to jump in. Why do you suppose despite the fear that some students have of the forest and the loathing that others seem to feel for it do you believe that trips to wild classrooms are not just worth it but essential to do?

	The answer surprises us, especially when we are finally at the point of looking at our own teaching. The emergence of another conflict or paradox is immediately puzzling and perhaps troubling. 

RF: For me, now this is somewhat paradoxical, because for me there are many things that you find in a place like a tropical rainforest or a coral reef which challenge what we know and what we think we know. And I sort of like being humbled--maybe a little bit--uh it's hard to do--it's hard to set that up because a lot of that knowledge I get maybe from people telling me, I don't get it from firsthand information--just from being there. I'll tell one example, which I thought, you know, using the schoolyard, looking at the wild things in the school yard, we did some bird watching at our old campus--actually had pretty good diversity of birds. We'd get about 30 species, and if we did it at the right time of year, we could find about six different species nesting, and nests are good things for beginners to watch because the birds are there, whereas otherwise it's hard to find them. I remember this set of kids watching this pink-necked pigeon, and they watched it and watched it and watched it.  It was kind of boring because the pigeon just basically sat on the nest all during their morning period.  And they’re back there looking through the books trying to identify it, and one of the kids who happened to be pretty perceptive said, “You know something’s not right here because that bird we saw sitting on the nest looks like this one.” And I said, “Yeah?” And he said, “But that’s the male? Males don’t sit on the nest?”  (laughter) And I said, “Oh they don’t?”  So that discomfort he felt of having his sense of what genders do—and in the bird world there’s all kinds of possibilities just like in the fish world--the plant world’s even more bizarre--and that’s kind of the thing I like. But that’s a kind of paradox because you don’t necessarily get that by just taking kids into the forest you don’t necessarily see those things.  So there’s this period of getting to the point where you can see things and notice things.  That’s why we’re having a dialog because we don’t have any easy, definite answers.

	Both of us have long advocated activity and inquiry as the significant emphasis in our science teaching.  We have often planned as if finding the right phenomenon to spur students' enthusiasm was an essential key to good science teaching and learning. Wild classrooms, whether they were in the desert, a coral reef, a rainforest, a cave, or a mangrove swamp, were thought to contain full, rich phenomena, ripe like tropical fruit, for our inquisitive students to pick. But it turns out that one of us points to the products of school science as mere "pretty wrapping" for a deeper, more fundamental, intrinsic gift and the other requires a civilized didact to point out the renegade lessons Wild Nature supposedly teaches. 
	Another excerpt from the email dialog bolsters the uncertainty:

A question I have had about school activities in general is what determines whether the context is accepted by students as something worthwhile or important.  A natural born naturalist needs only the objects of study to justify her or his attention, devotion, effort.  The grade hound only needs
to know it counts for gpa or honor roll to do any stupid thing the teacher asks putting forth just enough effort to get the high mark minus and then argue for the plus.  Some kids see the contrived contexts of school for what they are. So what is the context of a trip to the forest for school kids?  In my days of naive belief that the right phenomenon was all there was to good science teaching, I felt certain things in the forest were almost foolproof in stimulating curiosity.  Primates and pitcher plants, for example.  I now don't think it is possible to find something which appeals to all (although primates come close if you include captive observations in a zoo). To some, the tropical forest is quite boring. So is the motivation that the forest is the richest terrestrial ecosystem on earth, and city kids "need to know" this?  Trying to justify a school based context to a jaded kid is
like a criminal proclaiming his innocence.  Yeah, right.  So how does the innate biophilia develop---especially if the experience in the forest is bewildering, boring, uncomfortable?  Does fear work?  The loss of forest and global warming?  Missing the cure for aids in the obscure and soon to
be extinct shrub?  Sympathy?  Pictures of baby orangutans perishing in the dooming forest fires? Can one field trip generate the passion to pursue some forest based interest?  I doubt it.  Is it not the most bizarre wish in the world that kids on a trip to the forest will learn to love it, so that when they are adults and can choose to buy expensive certifiable furniture from sustainable forest instead of cheap extracted clear cut forest furniture, they will remember their lessons in the forest as kids and do the right thing. What are the lessons in the forest?

   	In our efforts to bring children into contact with Nature, we have students like Anousha who hears our stories of symbiosis and challenges them with her own eyes and mind. For one particular moment she employs her Nature as her own teacher.  But we also have Mark who repeats a garbled exposition of symbiosis in the school forest of the large, urban, expatriate school. When the camera records, he and his partner Asim are planning a nature tour for elementary students.  

1.	RF: Can you tell us a little about the fig. Let me see.
2.	Asim: (Picks one up.) That's one fig. 
3.	Mark: The female usually lays her eggs through the top up here and she puts like her--I'm not quite sure what it's called, but--she just sticks it right down, down there.  And while she does this, the pollination, the pollen from the other fig also catches on this, this is the stigma (holds stem?) for this plant pollinating it. (smiles)

Nature smiles at us here. The story that compels in its detail and blurs the division of life into plant and animal does not quite reach the pupil in the same detail even though he has felt, perhaps tasted, counted, dissected, and both enjoyed and regretted his time with the fig tree. What are we to make now of our own claims to the value of wild classrooms?   

A conclusion?

	If we were to go now before our principals with the data we have presented, what would we say?  Many of the students' questions, observations, theories, and ideas are sophisticated. Scientists would recognize many of the students' ideas and techniques as having the potential for generating interesting studies. The students exhibit engagement with the activities in the wild classrooms, as much as they do in any of their other science activities. Some students seem to enjoy the experience and work more than others. Some seem to enjoy being out of the regular classroom more than they enjoy the work. Some seem to find the setting uncomfortable and perhaps even a little alien and fearful. Some of the students' writings are beautiful, powerful, and moving. Some of the students come to know the plants and animals "on a first-name basis."
	We would not tell our principals that the work the students did was merely pretty wrapping and that the true value of our time in the wild classroom was real but not easily articulated. Why have we as teachers failed to propose any link between close looking and deeper connection with Nature? Was this a tacit assumption on our part? It puzzles whether we have neglected or assumed. We seem to agree with Wordsworth without being able to say clearly what "one impulse from a vernal wood" will teach us or what it is exactly that we are to "watch and receive" once we close the "barren leaves" prized by our "meddling intellect." It remains paradoxically odd that Nature challenges the lessons learned in school through lessons that must often be told and pointed out.
	If we were to prepare a public presentation for administrators, school board members, parents, and even fellow teachers, we would undoubtedly fashion from students' work the pieces that shine as science and art. We would suggest, too, that the rich experience of intellect fostered in wild classrooms would engender knowledge, respect, and caring for the plants and animals, and most importantly, the ideas.  We might laugh about the mud, rain, and mosquitoes, relegating them to charming hardships that helped forge bonds among the group.
	We would hide our conflicts. We might voice the admonition reported earlier:

"We have to accomplish something. We have to have some information that's valuable or interesting enough to make another trip worthwhile."

But we would not publicly proclaim:

"I will not do a worksheet. I will not do a checklist. I will not constrain my students with data and experiments. I will not devise work (pretty package wrap) to convince others that this trip has been a valuable one. I will not produce bulletin boards, notebooks, or student writings upon my return to the classroom. This trip is worthwhile for its own sake, and unlike other field trips that this school may endorse, I will not ask students to produce anything from the trip. Their experiences will be their own; their products will be their own."

	In private we would again commiserate with our colleagues that the real point of lessons in wild classrooms cannot be articulated. "Grandpa never explained what it meant."  In one of our visions, the most valuable lessons of the wild classroom defy closure, deny finished products, and refuse articulate expression. What a dilemma for teachers who listen to Wordsworth's call!
	If we were to go before our students again, how would we propose a trip to a wild classroom? Would we advertise the products, the fun, the discomfort, the inarticulate values of the heart? Would we expect them to learn the lessons we see, to garble the stories of symbiosis that thrill our own visions of nature? Would we find sobering recognition in the imitation when our students lead others, when the lecturer's register of their explanations seeks to tame the wild exuberance of a bewildering forest? When the wild confuses, will we still teach our students to look, to dissect, to count and measure?  Will we continue to point out when Nature neither shows nor explains but rather hides and overwhelms? What will we claim about a "natural paradise" working "its magic" when our students find themselves "unable to unravel the riddles?"
	The questions are difficult for teachers who are well experienced in taking children into wild classrooms. We wonder where our inquiry and reflection have led us. We wonder about our ambiguous professional marriage with science. We also question the competence of Nature as the teacher when we have to point out the hidden details.  We challenge our own mixed motivations.
	Perhaps the conflicts are nourished by our wandering, expatriate lives. What leads us to promote a sense of place and deep connection with local nature to our students, who are global nomads or third culture kids, when we have run far from our original homes? Does an addiction for wild experience lie beneath the justifications we make for school learning in wild classrooms? Do we refuse to delineate the sense of deep connection wild experience brings because of awe and wonder or because we do not trust our own habits of rationalization, reflection, and being responsible?
	Our inquiry into wild classrooms leaves us for the moment in a troubled state, riddled with paradox. It is not clear to us that any connections can be claimed about the wild classrooms we have opened for our students and what their experience means. It may be our own double bind to voice a public justification that is countered by a private but inexpressible yearning. It may be that when we claim to relinquish our students to a classroom where Nature is the teacher, we actually garner authoritarian control in order to point out the hidden and to contain the bewildering profusion. Reflection itself as a research orientation is also troubling. It is not clear that our teaching practice will change or improve as a result of this inquiry. It is not clear that reflection has enabled us to become more articulate about our motivations, rationalizations, or orientations. We do need the opportunity to direct the many questions raised here to each other. We feel the dialog is worth continuing. 
	Returning to Goethe's orientations may suggest a scale of development, that we may proceed through practical knowledge, and fact-finding, to arrive eventually at a comprehension of the whole to which Nature simultaneously conforms. Perhaps Goethe gives us a clue as to how we might resolve our commitment to science with our inarticulate (anti-scientific?) appeals for deep connection and value. Wordsworth, the poet, does not seem to help much. We are too much like him. He gleaned his bookish livelihood from Nature, just as our efforts to enter wild classrooms have been supported by institutions that value civilized classrooms.
	Pattiann Rogers, the poet, offers a meditation on, "Animals and people: The human heart in conflict with itself." (1997) Her words weave a litany of paradox binding people and animals. After many stanzas outlining the coupled conflicts, she asks, 

For how can we posses dignity if we allow them no dignity?
Who will recognize our beauty if we do not revel in their beauty?
How can we hope to receive honor if we give no honor?
How can we believe in grace if we cannot bestow grace?

We still love wild nature, and we still cherish our students. But we have not yet found the path that clearly connects our place as teachers in the classrooms of our institutions to the bearings we follow toward wild classrooms. Perhaps there are bridges in the coupled dignity, beauty, honor, and grace Rogers questions. We certainly continue to imagine that the critical endeavors for children and wild nature in the 21st century will involve finding such bridges.     
	   What has Nature taught us in the wild classrooms we have fashioned in this inquiry?  We began with a poem by Wordsworth written near the end of the 18th century. Wordsworth sounds familiar to us; we have heeded his words and actions, earning a living from "meddling intellect" and "barren leaves" while reveling in the "sweet lore of Nature" with watchful and receptive hearts. We shall end with another poem, written at the end of the 20th century, by a student who wandered with us to wild classrooms.  V. Manglik, with dignity, beauty, honor, and grace beyond her years, leaves us teachers with essential questions.

Gunung Ledang

Green sparticles of the future,
Even if there is no future, we still have now.
We have today's waterfalls,
And yesterday's trees.
They come together as now,
Now where's the future?
Wobbling down the muddiness of paths and imagining the future when you're done with
This ordeal.
A gibbon's cry is like a death
Of a feather.
For who knows where gibbons will live in the future,
Heaven?
Or will they be reincarnated to a different species?
Who knows?
Where is the future of Gunung Ledang?
Or is Gunung Ledang the ghosts of yesterday
And are the trees the chains that exist only in our imaginations?

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Whitmore, T. (1986). Tropical rain forests of the Far East. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

Yamada, I. (1997). Tropical rain forests of Southeast Asia: A forest ecologist's view. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.