REGION
TUESDAY, MAY 31, 2022
THE OBSERVER — A3
Sixth graders take their learning outdoors
By LISA BRITTON
Baker City Herald
CAMP ELKANAH —
Jean Ann Mitchell ended
the botany lesson with a
snack.
But not just any snack —
this one was bright yellow,
full of petals, and in abun-
dant supply across the
meadow.
“Those are each
fl owers,” she said, picking
apart the dandelion head as
the students leaned it for a
look.
Each of those petals is
edible — and nearly every
sixth grader tried at least a
taste of the common fl ower.
Then the bell rang and
the kids made their way to
a diff erent type of meal —
homemade macaroni and
cheese prepared to feed
kids after a morning of out-
door school activities.
Sixth graders from South
Baker Intermediate School
and Haines Elementary
arrived at Camp Elkanah,
near Ukiah about 70 miles
northwest of Baker City, on
Monday, May 23, for this
year’s outdoor school.
They stayed two nights,
and returned home May 25.
This year Camp
Elkanah staff organized the
schedule, programs, volun-
teers and handouts.
In Oregon, outdoor
school opportunities have
been funded by lottery dol-
lars since the passage of
Measure 99 in 2016.
The purpose of that
measure was to establish a
permanent fund so every
Oregon school student had
the opportunity for a week
of science-based education.
The Oregon State Uni-
versity Extension Service is
responsible for distributing
the funds.
“Suddenly, everyone
needed outdoor school,
and there’s not enough out-
Photos by Lisa Britton/Baker City Herald
Sixth grade students from Baker City and Haines attend outdoor school at Camp Elkanah, near Ukiah, Monday through Wednesday, May 23-25, 2022. Phil Richerson, left photo,
a hydrogeologist with the DEQ offi ce in Pendleton, teaches students about how surface water can be contaminated — and how humans can minimize their mess. Right photo,
students sort through puzzle pieces to build models of dinosaurs.
door school providers,” said
Kaitlin Gustafson, program
director at Camp Elkanah.
Out in nature
At fi rst, a school would
rent the facility and
then organize its own
programming.
“What (OSU) heard
from school districts is
that this is a lot of work,”
she said.
So now Camp Elkanah
provides the experience.
Gustafson and her hus-
band, Josh, live full-time
at Camp Elkanah with
their family. In addition
to outdoor school, they
provide summer camps
and retreats. The facility
is busy from April to
November. This was the
fi fth week they welcomed
a school.
“It’s a really cool oppor-
tunity to get involved in
the community,” she said.
Plus, she said it’s nice
for kids to be in nature.
“You’re outside, no
screens. They’re actu-
ally interacting with each
other,” she said.
In 2020, as the coro-
navirus prompted schools
to close, she said some
outdoor schools went
online and livestreamed
programs.
“We didn’t go online,”
Gustafson said.
In response to the hard-
ship faced by outdoor
school providers, OSU
developed grant programs
in December 2020 to help
improve accessibility and
inclusivity.
Gustafson said the
grants they received are
funding two new acces-
sible restroom facili-
ties, and will revamp two
cabins.
Students study
multiple subjects
The spring of 2021
brought day camps back
to Camp Elkanah, with
schools coming from La
Grande, Union, Umatilla
and Irrigon.
This spring, they’ve
welcomed two schools
every week for overnight
experiences.
“We provide the struc-
ture, content, food and
lodging,” Gustafson said.
“The schedule changes
based on group size and
when presenters are
available.”
School staff members
are responsible for man-
aging the students.
For the Baker School
District students, day one
involved challenges — a
zip line, climbing tower,
swing and team-building
ropes course.
On day two, small
groups rotated through
six stations: entomology,
fi shing, weather, dino-
saurs, botany and DEQ.
“We piece together
who’s available,” Gus-
tafson said.
As people return to
more normal work sched-
ules, she said calendars are
fi lling up quickly for those
who usually teach at out-
door school. The weather
has been tough, too.
“This spring has been
especially challenging
with the weather,” she said.
“We had everyone inside
at times — we had to get
out of the snow.”
But Tuesday, May 24,
was a sunny day that found
everyone outside, looking
at trees and plants and
inspecting water sam-
ples collected from the
creek. At the DEQ sta-
tion, Phil Richerson
and John Dadoly taught
about surface water and
groundwater.
“How we make a mess,
and how can we minimize
that mess?” Richerson
said. “How can we live our
lives but leave as small a
mess as possible?”
These two have been
frequent presenters at
Camp Elkanah.
“We’re probably going
to talk to 900 or a thou-
sand kids this year,” Rich-
erson said.
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munities,” Green said.
At its May 10 meeting,
the John Day City Council
appointed Community
Development Director
Corum Ketchum to the posi-
tion of interim city manager
for a six-month trial period.
Green says there are no
known partnerships of this
type in the state. R3 would
be a precedent-setting agree-
ment between the three com-
munities and an experiment
other cities would be closely
monitoring to see if it can
work.
Brown said the commu-
nity of Hines has expressed
interest in joining the R3
partnership, and the commu-
nities of Ontario, Nyssa and
Vale have discussed forming
a similar partnership some-
time in the future.
GU
tual part of development for
R3 and what that’s going to
look like,” she said.
John Day is a little fur-
ther along in adopting the R3
partnership than Lakeview
and Burns. The city council
has reviewed the adopting
resolution and has agreed
to proceed with the part-
nership after fi nalizing the
scope with the other two
communities.
The timeline for fi nal-
izing the partnership is up in
the air at this point, however,
because Green, John Day’s
city manager, is leaving that
post in June.
“Depending on what the
council decides to do with
the replacement city man-
ager, that will determine
our ability to participate
in R3 because there has to
be a city manager to direct
the activities of the agency
from each of the three com-
’S
Brown says the agree-
ment “started as an idea
about the effi ciency of local
government.” The downside,
according to Brown, is that
the communities in the part-
nership are so far apart.
Lakeview has put R3 on
its list of priorities, according
to Town Manager Michelle
Perry. The town has been
awarded a series of grants to
build a water treatment plant
and renovate McDonald
Park. Because of supply
chain issues and rising costs,
those projects have taken
precedence over the R3 part-
nership in the town.
“We’re starting to clear
some of those things off our
table, so we’ll probably pick
up R3 again and do some
revisions on that,” Perry said.
At this time, Lakeview
hasn’t had detailed discus-
sions about R3.
“We’re still in the concep-
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John Day City Hall is shown on Friday, May 20, 2022. The city is looking into a partnership with Burns
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Blue Mountain Eagle, File
N
JOHN DAY — A poten-
tial partnership between the
cities of John Day, Burns and
Lakeview is taking shape —
slowly, but it is taking shape.
Known as Regional Rural
Revitalization Strategies
(or R3 for short), the part-
nership is centered on com-
bining and sharing resources
that would allow the com-
munities to better cover costs
related to fi lling housing
needs and other public
improvement projects.
These strategies will
allow the small cities that
make up the partnership
to “hunt as a pack” by pro-
viding asset management
services that pool staff , cap-
ital equipment and fi nancing
across multiple jurisdictions,
according to an R3 white
paper released in February.
In Burns, City Manager
Nick Brown says the city
council has had discussions
pertaining to R3 but hasn’t
gotten to a vote on the part-
nership yet. He adds that
the scope of the partnership
has been narrowed by the
council.
“Burns City Council
thinks R3 has a lot of pos-
itive attributes, especially
shared resources to get proj-
ects done that would have
been diffi cult to do alone,”
Brown said.
Talks about forming a
partnership came about
during discussions Brown
had with John Day City
Manger Nick Green about
similar goals the two cites
have. Those discussions
evolved into ideas about
sharing a city planner and
sharing costs, which led
to the idea of the R3 part-
nership. Both Burns and
John Day then reached
out to Lakeview to gauge
its interest in joining the
partnership.
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