Expeditions In Education

08/31/2026

The magic is already beginning for the 2026–2027 school year!

School has only been in session for a week, and Rodney—Expeditions in Education board member, ambassador, and one of our original STEAM in the PARK campers—is already doing what he does best: taking learning beyond the classroom walls and directly into nature.

Armed with their journals and our Student Audio Field Guides, his students are listening closely, observing the wild, and capturing the world around them. When you connect students to the outdoors through place-based STEAM, curiosity takes over.

Want to bring this same experience to your classroom? Explore our audio field guides and journaling resources here:

https://www.expeditionsineducation.org/studentaudiofieldjournal.html

Share how you are getting your students "outside".

08/27/2026

STEAM in the Park: Taking Teacher Training Outside the Box (and into the Wild)

Most teacher workshops follow the same tired script: sit in a windowless room, listen to a lecture about "hands-on learning," and take home a binder of handouts you’ll probably never open.

STEAM in the Park flips that script completely. Instead of talking at teachers about outdoor education, we bring them straight into America’s national parks and let them become students again. They spend their days getting their hands dirty—measuring river currents, sketching wildlife, testing trail designs, and following their own curiosity across rugged landscapes.

The idea is simple: you can't teach wonder if you haven't felt it lately.

Why a National Park Beats a Presentation
In the wild, subjects don't live in separate 45-minute boxes. A canyon footbridge is a masterclass in geometry, load-bearing physics, and trail engineering. A giant redwood or desert pine invites scientific data, scale estimation, and observational sketching. A glacial stream naturally bridges geology, chemistry, and ecology. Teachers didn’t need elaborate lab kits. They just needed an authentic landscape, a fresh pair of eyes, and a good question.

Bringing the Magic Back to the Schoolyard
The goal was never for teachers to copy-paste a massive national park into their daily schedule. It was about learning to see possibilities everywhere:

No grand canyons nearby? A crack in the asphalt can spark a lesson on plant resilience and erosion. No rushing rivers? The school playground is full of everyday physics and engineering. No big budget? A simple notebook and a phone camera turn a walk around the block into field research.

The Ripple Effect
When you give an educator an unforgettable experience in a national park, the impact multiplies. That single teacher brings the excitement back to dozens of students every year, shares field-tested strategies in the staff room, and reshapes how an entire school approaches learning.

The best professional development doesn't just hand out lesson plans. It changes what teachers notice, rekindles their curiosity, and proves that you don't need a national park in your backyard to make learning come alive—just the curiosity to look closer. 2027 is loading soon!

During each of our adventures, our campers have worked together to create a shared document with lesson ideas and immersions specific to the park they visited.

08/24/2026

Crossing America is BACK for Season 6!

We are packing the cameras, building the lessons, working with our National Park partners, and getting ready to take students across America again...without ever leaving their classrooms.

Crossing America brings LIVE virtual adventures from National Parks and public lands directly to students and educators. We explore science, history, engineering, conservation, careers, and the stories of these incredible places alongside the people who know them best.

And everything we create is FREE for educators. That part matters deeply to us.

Season 6 is beginning, and we would love to have your classroom, school, district, homeschool group, or organization come along. Share this with an educator. Send it to your principal. Pass it along to that teacher down the hall who loves bringing the outside world into their classroom.

Come Cross America with us!

Explore Crossing America, our LiveStreams, videos, lessons, and resources here:

Crossing America is back for Season 6, and we are so excited to once again bring students and educators LIVE into America’s national parks and public lands. This season, we are focusing on what has...

08/12/2026

Keep Expeditions in Education Moving Forward.

Dear Friends,

To state things as simply as possible, Expeditions in Education needs your help.

When Steve and I started Expeditions in Education, we didn't have some grand plan to build a national nonprofit. We were educators who loved national parks, loved learning, and believed with everything in us that teachers and students deserved opportunities to experience the world beyond the walls of a classroom.

We believed a ranger standing beside a mountain stream could teach science in a way a textbook never could. We believed a child could fall in love with a national park they had never visited. We believed teachers needed to be reminded that what they do matters. Somewhere along the way, this little idea became so much bigger than the two of us.

For the past ten years, Steve and I have had the privilege of partnering with national park sites, park friends groups, foundations, rangers, scientists, and educators to bring the awe and wonder of America's public lands into classrooms across the country. What began as a dream has grown into a mission that has connected millions of students, families, and educators with places that belong to all of us.

This year we have received less than half of the funding we requested. At the same time, many of our park partners experienced significant funding reductions of their own, leaving them with fewer resources to support educational partnerships like ours.

The reality is difficult to say, but it is important to be honest: without additional funding, programs like Crossing America and STEAM in the PARK will no longer be sustainable. The free lessons, live streams, educator camps, classroom resources, and national park experiences that have reached more than six million students and hundreds of thousands of educators could come to an end.

For years, we have traveled across this country with cameras, equipment, lesson plans, supplies, and what sometimes feels like our entire lives packed into Pelican boxes. Those boxes have been hauled into national parks, loaded onto boats, carried into visitor centers, and opened in places all across America. Along the way, people have continued to say yes to helping us bring these incredible places and their stories to kids.

And we have watched the magic happen.

We have watched students join us live from classrooms and send questions faster than we could answer them. We have watched teachers light up because suddenly their lesson had a real ranger, scientist, animal, historic place, or national park attached to it. We have watched educators arrive at STEAM in the PARK tired and carrying more than anyone around them probably knew, and leave laughing, connected, encouraged, and ready to return to their classrooms with a little more fuel in their tanks.

That is why this has never just been about national parks. It has always been about people.

It is about the teacher spending Sunday afternoon getting ready for Monday morning. It is about the child who has never seen a mountain, an ocean, or stood beneath a giant tree. It is about the student who doesn't think science is for them until something makes them stop and say, "Wait, what?" It is about creating moments when learning feels like discovery instead of an assignment.

We have worked hard to make as much of what we create available to educators for free as possible. Teachers already spend enough of their own money on their classrooms. We never wanted an educator to discover something wonderful we created and then realize they couldn't use it because their school couldn't afford it.

But keeping something free for educators doesn't mean it is free to create.

It takes people, travel, cameras, technology, supplies, websites, insurance, program expenses, and hundreds of things most people never see. For years, we have pieced it together through grants, partnerships, contracts, donations, and the generosity of people who believed in this work.

This year, the pieces simply aren't coming together the way they have in the past.

That is hard for me to write because Steve and I are much more comfortable figuring out another way. We rewrite the budget. Make another phone call. Send another email. Pack another Pelican box. Drive another thousand miles. We just keep going.

But determination alone doesn't fund the work.

So we are asking for help. Our goal is to raise $50,000 to help keep Expeditions in Education moving forward.

We aren't asking one person to save this organization. We are asking a community of people who believe in educators, students, learning, and our public lands to stand beside us and help carry this work forward.

You can support our GoFundMe here:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/empower-education-with-expeditions

Your donation might help create the next free lesson a teacher uses on a Tuesday morning. It might put a ranger live on a screen in front of thousands of students. It might help us travel to a park and capture a story that becomes a classroom resource for years. It might help us keep STEAM in the PARK going for another year, giving educators the chance to learn, explore, connect, and rediscover some of the joy that brought them into teaching in the first place. It might give an educator an experience that sends them home with new ideas, friendships, confidence, and a little more fuel in their tank.

But there is another incredibly important way you can help.

We know there are businesses, corporations, organizations, foundations, and individuals who believe every child deserves access to these incredible places and who believe in supporting the educators who serve them. Our greatest challenge is finding the right people and getting our story in front of them.

If someone comes to mind, would you be willing to introduce us? Forward this message? Share our story? Connect us with a foundation or corporation that might be willing to talk with us?

Sometimes the person who cannot give $25 knows the person who can give $25,000. We need both of them.

This isn't about saving Steve and me. It isn't about growing an organization just for the sake of getting bigger. It is about protecting the work we have built for educators and students and making sure there is still someone out there saying, "Come with us. We have something incredible to show you."

Steve and I still believe what we believed when we started this crazy adventure. We believe classrooms have no walls. We believe educators matter. We believe students deserve experiences that make them curious about this beautiful world. We believe our public lands belong in the education of our children.

And we believe there is still so much work left to do.

There are more stories to tell, more educators to encourage, more students to reach, more places to explore, and more moments of wonder waiting to happen. We aren't ready to stop. But this time, we cannot keep going by ourselves.

If Expeditions in Education has ever meant something to you—if your students have joined one of our adventures, if you have traveled with us, learned with us, laughed with us, partnered with us, or simply followed this journey from afar—we are asking you to stand with us now.

For the teachers who keep showing up every morning. For the students who haven't discovered what makes their eyes light up yet. For the classrooms that deserve to be connected to a much bigger world. And for all the adventures we haven't had yet.

Help us keep the adventure going.

Because classrooms really do have no walls, and there is still so much of this beautiful world left to explore together.

Donate or share our GoFundMe:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/empower-education-with-expeditions

Dacia & Steve Jones

Dear Friends, I'm reaching out to you today to support an incredible m… Kim Miller needs your support for Inspired Connections with Expeditions in Education

07/17/2026

I want to share something I've been thinking about. For years, I've heard people leave conferences, workshops, and gatherings saying, "I found my tribe." I've said it myself. I've even been part of organizations that used that phrase to celebrate the incredible feeling of finding people who inspire you, challenge you, encourage you, and make you feel like you belong. The sentiment has always been sincere, and I know it comes from a place of gratitude and connection.

Over the past few years, however, STEAM in the PARK has given me the privilege of building relationships with Indigenous educators, park rangers, cultural leaders, and community members across the country. As I've listened to their stories and learned more about the meaning of Tribal Nations, I've realized that the word tribe is much more than a catchy expression. It represents living cultures, sovereign nations, histories, families, and identities that deserve to be recognized with respect.

After thoughtful conversations with some of our Indigenous friends and partners, I've decided to make a small but meaningful change in my own language. Instead of saying, "I found my tribe," I'll be saying, "I found my people," or "I found a community that feels like home." Those words express exactly what I mean while honoring the significance of a word that carries deep meaning for others.

This isn't about judging anyone who still uses the phrase. In fact, I understand it because I've been there too. It's simply about continuing to learn. One of the greatest gifts of education is that we don't have to stay where we started. We can listen. We can grow. We can make small changes when we discover a better way.

If there's one thing our journeys through America's national parks have taught me, it's that every landscape has a story, every person has a perspective, and every conversation has the potential to make us a little wiser than we were yesterday. I'm grateful to those who have shared their experiences with me so generously, and I hope I never stop learning from them.

So, if you hear me say, "I found my people," or "I found a community that feels like home," you'll know why. It's a simple change in words, but for me, it's a meaningful step toward showing the respect that our Indigenous friends and neighbors deserve.

07/16/2026

Seven national parks. Seven STEAM in the PARK camps. Two hundred seventy-five incredible campers.

As we crossed the halfway point of our summer, I found myself reflecting on what these past seven weeks have really been about. It isn't the miles we've traveled or even the places we've explored. It's the people, the park rangers, the families, the educators, and the moments that remind us why America's national parks are some of the greatest classrooms in the world.

I wrote this reflection with a heart full of gratitude—for everyone who has been part of these first seven adventures and for the five still to come.

I hope you'll take a few minutes to read it.

Seven camps. Seven national parks. Two hundred seventy-five campers. As I sat quietly after Rocky Mountain Family Camp, I realized those numbers tell only the smallest part of the story. They measure...

07/10/2026

Sometimes Steve and I are so busy building the next thing that we forget to stop and look at what we have already built.

Expeditions in Education now has more than 1,000 free educational assets designed to take students, educators, and families into national parks and public lands across the country.

More than 200 video and engineering classes filmed at national park sites. PBL immersions built around real challenges facing public lands. Backpack the Park activities. Book Connections. Math in Nature. Field investigations. Digital ranger experiences. Engineering challenges. Nature-based lessons connected to NGSS and other national standards.

All free.

No subscription. No membership. No school license.

This little husband-and-wife team built it.

Steve would want me to clarify that he does not write the lessons. Ha! He is the videographer and logistics guru who makes it possible for me to write them. He gets us into these places, manages the equipment, and captures the stories of rangers, scientists, wildlife, and wild places. While he is thinking about cameras, sound, batteries, and memory cards, I am usually standing nearby thinking, "I can turn this into a lesson."

Then I write.

I think about the student who may never stand beneath a giant sequoia, search for salamanders in the Smokies, study dark skies at Bryce Canyon, or explore a salt marsh. I think about the educator who wants to teach science differently but may not have the budget or resources to do it.

And I keep asking the same question.

How do we take this back to kids?

Today, we believe Expeditions in Education has built the largest free portal of national park classroom lessons and adventures in the country.

More than 1,000 free educational assets. More than 200 national park sites explored through our work. More than 200 video and engineering classes.

There is no paywall because access matters to us. A student's zip code or a school's budget should not determine whether they get to learn from some of the greatest classrooms in this country.

We believe students protect the things they understand. We believe they fall in love with places they experience, even when that first experience happens through a screen in a classroom hundreds or thousands of miles away.

Learn it. Love it. Protect it.

Steve gets us there and captures the stories. I figure out how to turn those stories into learning.

More than 1,000 free ways to take students into America's public lands.

I think we are allowed to brag about that one.

And to the parks, rangers, scientists, partners, and supporters who have opened doors, shared their knowledge, stood in front of Steve's camera, and believed in this work: thank you.

We are still building. Classrooms have no walls.

Our summer adventures of STEAM in the PARK have begun. We will visit 12 national sites with educators from across the country for a 5-day, 4-night immersive experience designed for educators who are...

07/01/2026

The World's Longest Field Trip

Today, as our bus wound its way toward the tide pools at Salt Creek, our friend Katelyn leaned over and said, "You know... this whole summer is really just one long field trip for you and Steve." I laughed but the more I thought about it, the more I realized she was exactly right. While each STEAM in the PARK camp has its own personality, for us they all blend together into one incredible 85-day adventure. We unpack, teach, laugh, learn, repack, and head to the next national park to do it all over again. Somewhere between the field experiences, the campfires, the lesson plans, and the countless miles, we realized we aren't just leading twelve separate camps—we're living The World's Longest Field Trip.

Teachers, you know exactly what I mean.

Every school year, you spend weeks planning one field trip. You send permission slips home, answer dozens of emails, organize lunches, make bus lists, assign chaperones, remind students to wear the right shoes, check the weather eighteen different times, and secretly hope nobody gets motion sick before you've even left the parking lot.

Now imagine doing that every five days for almost three months.
Instead of permission slips, we answer questions that somehow feel remarkably similar. "Can I arrive early?" "Can I stay an extra night?" "What if my flight is delayed?" "Will there be bears?" "How cold is cold?" "Do I really need rain gear?" By the time camp begins, we've answered enough emails to qualify for honorary customer service awards.

Then comes packing. Teachers know that no matter how carefully you prepare, someone always forgets something. Except on this adventure, we're the ones forgetting things. Somewhere across America we've purchased enough toothbrushes, phone chargers, diet dr. pepper, sunscreen, socks, laundry detergent, and ibuprofen to personally support half the small-town general stores located near our national parks. If you've ever wondered who keeps those little travel-size toiletries in business, you're welcome.

And then there's heading out for activities. Every teacher has done the head count. Thirty-one...thirty-two...wait...28? Steve and I have become professional counters. We count campers. We count ambassadors. We count coolers. We count backpacks. Sometimes I think we count each other just to make sure neither of us wandered off looking at wildflowers.

Of course, there is always That One Person. Every field trip has one. Not the late person. The person who comes sprinting across the parking lot with a coffee in one hand, a jacket under the other arm, trying to zip their backpack while waving frantically that they're "almost there!" Somehow, they always make it. Somehow, they are always the last one.

Lunches are another adventure entirely. Teachers know that lunch on a field trip is organized chaos. Adults, it turns out, are really no different. Someone forgot their water bottle. Someone packed enough snacks for an Appalachian Trail thru-hike. Someone discovers that the sandwich they made that morning has evolved into its own ecosystem. We simply nod, smile, and keep moving.

Then there are the bathroom breaks. Oh, the bathroom breaks. Adults simply become much more strategic. "Will there be another restroom at the visitor center?" "How long is this trail?" "Is there one before we get on the boat?" Experienced teachers know you never, ever pass a restroom without considering whether everyone should stop. National park veterans learn that lesson quickly.

The weather also enjoys keeping us humble. Every week begins with a forecast that looks perfectly reasonable. By lunchtime we've experienced sunshine, sideways rain, wind, fog, and someone asking if it's supposed to snow in July. We have learned that weather apps are less of a guarantee and more of a thoughtful suggestion.

And then come the questions. Thousands of wonderful questions. "What bird is that?" "Can you eat these berries?" "Why is this tree so big?" "How old is this rock?" "Is that slug really supposed to be yellow?" Thankfully, we travel with some of the finest park rangers in the country. They remind us of something every great teacher already knows: you don't have to know every answer. Sometimes the best response is simply, "Let's find out together."

Of course, every field trip also includes the teacher voice. You know the one. Not yelling. Not angry. Just loud enough for someone who's wandered a little too far down the trail to immediately realize they've crossed the invisible boundary. It's amazing how universal that voice is. Teachers have it. Rangers have it. Somewhere along the way, Steve even learned to respond to it.

The funniest part is that after weeks on the road, we occasionally wake up and ask each other, "Where are we today?" Olympic? Bryce? Acadia? Glacier? Somewhere along the way, the GPS stopped feeling like a navigation system and started feeling like a close friend.

And don't even get me started on the paperwork. Teachers understand that every magical experience somehow creates twice as much paperwork as anyone expected. Attendance. Photos. Certificates. Lesson plans. Blogs. Social media. Evaluations. Receipts. Expense reports. Somewhere, a printer sighs every time it sees our names pop up.

But here's the beautiful thing. No one remembers the paperwork.
They remember seeing the Pacific Ocean for the first time. They remember holding a sea star in a tide pool. They remember hearing an elk bugle across a valley. They remember standing beneath giant sequoias or watching salmon fight their way upstream. They remember the ranger whose passion was contagious, the campfire conversations that lasted long after the flames faded, and the friendships that somehow formed between people who lived thousands of miles apart just a week earlier.

That's why teachers keep planning field trips, even though they're exhausting. That's why Steve and I keep saying yes to another summer on the road. Because learning changes when you leave the classroom. Curiosity grows when people experience something instead of simply reading about it. Wonder has a way of making itself at home when you're standing in places that have been telling stories for thousands of years.

So yes, STEAM in the PARK is one long field trip.
It just happens to last 85 days, cover thousands of miles, involve hundreds of educators, include more buses than I can count, enough trail mix to feed a small army, and enough memories to last a lifetime.

It's messy. It's unpredictable. It's occasionally hilarious. It's tiring.
And just like every great field trip, by the time it's over, we're already looking forward to the next one.

06/28/2026

Day 4: North Cascades National Park

"The adventure isn't ruined when the trail changes. Sometimes the detour becomes the story you'll tell for years."

Day 4 at STEAM in the PARK reminded us that nature has a way of rewriting even the best-laid plans—and sometimes she writes a better story than we ever could.

Our morning was supposed to be spent paddling together in Salish canoes, but the winds sweeping across Diablo Lake had other ideas. Safety always comes first, so our canoe adventure became an opportunity to practice one of our favorite Expedition skills: the art of the pivot. Around here, we've learned that flexibility isn't just a camping skill; it's a life skill.

Instead, our campers headed out with the incredible naturalists from the North Cascades Institute on several unforgettable adventures. One group explored the Buster Brown Trail, a peaceful forest walk winding through towering Douglas-firs, moss-covered logs, and the rich understory that makes the North Cascades feel almost enchanted. Along the way, conversations shifted naturally from forest ecology to the quiet lessons hidden beneath every fallen tree. It reminded us that sometimes slowing down is exactly how we begin to see more.

Others ventured onto the Diablo Lake Trail, where every bend revealed another breathtaking glimpse of that unforgettable turquoise water. Created by glacial rock flour suspended in the lake, Diablo's brilliant color almost seems unreal until you're standing beside it. Surrounded by rugged peaks, waterfalls, and dense evergreen forests, it was one of those hikes where cameras were busy, but everyone knew the best memories would never fit inside a photograph.

Back on campus, another group spent the morning examining wildlife skulls, learning about the fascinating history of this remarkable place, and discovering more about the animals and people who have shaped the North Cascades for generations. Whether hiking through the forest or gathered around hands-on discoveries, everyone found themselves learning in ways that simply can't happen inside four classroom walls.

After lunch, we all made our way down to the shores of Diablo Lake for one of the most anticipated moments of the week—our official 50th STEAM in the PARK Celebration Photo. Picture dozens of educators dressed in silly costumes, balancing on inflatable ducks, flamingos, unicorns, and every other floatie imaginable while standing by fifty-degree glacial water. There was plenty of laughter, a little bit of shivering, and countless moments of, "This is definitely going to make the photo!" Celebrating fifty camps in one of the most beautiful places in America felt like the perfect way to honor this milestone.

The rest of the afternoon belonged entirely to our campers.

One of the greatest gifts of STEAM in the PARK is that we intentionally leave room for unstructured time. In a world filled with schedules, notifications, and endless to-do lists, free time often feels like a forgotten luxury. Here, it becomes part of the experience.

Some wandered down to enjoy a cheeseburger or celebrate with a well-earned ice cream. Others explored the visitor center, soaking in the stories of the North Cascades. Several laced up their hiking boots one more time, determined to squeeze every last mile from these incredible mountains. A few browsed the gift shop searching for the perfect keepsake, while others found a quiet chair overlooking the lake, read a book, took a nap, or simply sat with new friends whose conversations somehow felt like they'd been happening for years instead of days.

There was no agenda to complete. No lesson to finish. Nowhere anyone had to be. Just space to breathe, to laugh, to reflect, and to enjoy being exactly where they were.

Sometimes the most meaningful part of camp isn't found in the scheduled activities. It's found in the unscripted moments when friendships deepen over an ice cream cone, when a quiet walk becomes a treasured memory, or when someone finally has enough time to simply notice the mountains surrounding them.

After another wonderful Mediterranean dinner, we gathered for one of our favorite evenings of every STEAM in the PARK experience. Gratitude, the National Parks Adventure Film, Framework of Nature, our Firefly Ceremony, and one final campfire brought our fourth day to a close.

We rarely share the details of our Firefly Ceremony because some moments are meant to be experienced rather than explained. It is simply a sacred time of gratitude—a chance to recognize the courage it takes for every educator to say "yes" to stepping away from home, investing in themselves, building community, and carrying the light they discover here back to their classrooms, schools, and families. Every camp leaves a little brighter than it arrived, and that is something we never take for granted.

As the campfire glowed beneath the North Cascades sky, it was impossible not to think about how quickly a week can pass. Tomorrow morning we'll share hugs, pack up cars, and begin the journey to our next STEAM in the PARK adventure. Every goodbye is bittersweet, but we've learned that each farewell simply makes room for another community waiting to be built.

Fifty camps later, we're more convinced than ever that the greatest thing we create isn't a program.

It isn't a curriculum. It isn't even a week in a national park. It's a community of people who remind one another that the world is still full of wonder, kindness, and hope.

"Life is less about finding the perfect path and more about finding the right people to walk beside you." And this week, we were blessed to walk together.