Staff Stories

A lesson in ice cutting engages students in history, science, team-building, and philosophy on Big Donahue Lake.

CS20 (Spring 2020) Quinzee Ice Town was an epic record breaker thanks to the leadership and enthusiasm of both staff and students!

Witness the gift of snow as documented by the CS20 (Spring 2020) Nature Photography Class.

Inspired by Birkie Weekend, students organized their own ski race on the Conserve School campus trails.

Getting "slushed" while on a frozen lake can be humbling. Even the best laid plans are not immune to winter slush! 

The mountains of Michigan's Upper Peninsula are great for downhill skiing and a fun weekend activity for students and staff.

Five educators from Conserve School presented at WAEE Winter Workshop.

Staff workshops included certification and re-certification courses. 

We had another full and successful move-in day. CS20 has arrived and the semester has officially begun!

CS20 used sawing wood as an entry into environmental literature, writing, and teamwork.

Stewardship class projects help students practice positive social change.

CS19 came to a close with a final dinner together, the gift of paddles, final reflections, and hopes for the future.

Read about the CS19 Arts Club process of making a mural from start to finish. 

A hybrid lesson in Science and Outdoor Skills in the Sylvania Wilderness Area. 

Students learned about the intrinsic links between culture, identity, stewardship, and the food we eat in a lesson about "food justice."

Students learned about the unique biology of lichen, and their high susceptibility to air pollutants.

CS19 students participated in the optional but much anticipated Polar Plunge.

CS19 staff and students came together to organize, learn, teach, and celebrate "Earth Week" at Conserve School.

Teaching Fellow Emily Haynes recently was awarded a master's degree. 

Conserve School was represented at the Fresh Coast Film Festival with a film produced  by Rob and Kate Houle. 

All students participate in staff-led campus night hikes to get used to being outside in the dark.

Eleva Potter, Director of Conservation Programming, writes about her recent talk at the annual NAAEE Conference. 

Teaching Fellow and CS Alum, Maia, with her sister; also an alum, paddle and reflect on the nature of change at Lowenwood.

Conserve School endeavors to have a greater impact and reach more young people through a new initiative. Read about the visit from Eagle River 4th graders.

Exploration Week is a time for students to build and use their outdoor skills, as well as a time for personal growth and bonding.

The bog walk lesson in Science serves as an introduction for students to a unique ecosystem in the Northwoods.

To make the history of The Corps of Discovery come alive, history teacher, Michael Salat gives students a taste of building a dugout canoe and paddles.

Spanish Class learns vocabulary that is useful in communicating about the natural world through guided tree meditations.

English Teacher, Jeff Rennicke, led a weekend paddle in the Sylvania. Students ate scones and took in the wilderness with their senses while practicing new canoeing skills. 

Here is a little slice of the activities, academics, and adventuring students have been involved with since CS19 arrived almost two weeks ago.

In the first English class of CS19 saws sing and students Learn with Aldo Leopold’s “Good Oak” essay.

This summer educators gathered to learn about building community climate resiliency within the Ojibwe Ceded Territory of MN, WI, and MI.

Huckleberries are important to many species in the Rocky Mountains. Read about the volunteer data collection Science Teacher, Anderew Deaett did in Montana.

Summertime is professional development time! Read about Rebecca and Paul's recent LNT Master Educator certification training.

For the past few summers, Conserve School has been hosting Escuela Verde from Milwaukee for Conservation Camp. 

Philosophical and practical reflections on pedagogy in the natural world inspires this AP Environmental Science lesson in aquatic macroinvertebrates.

Math modeling can be used to determine the probability of future potentially catastrophic events in nature. 

CS17 alums lead the way with the Wisconsin Youth Climate Summit. These students are leaders, organizers and activists. 

We just commissioned our 1000th student at the CS18 Recognition Ceremony! Here are the end of semester highlights.

Spanish class had fun cooking, learning about and eating traditional foods from various Spanish-speaking countries.

Science Teacher, Andrew Deaett, was recently awarded a National Geographic Educator Certification.

Recently, Spanish students reflected on their solo camping experiences, which involved 1-2 nights camping solo in Lowenwood.

Read about the kinds of campus stewardship CS18 students engaged in for their Class Taking Action Projects. 

Bruce Crownover, a working print master was a guest artist at Conserve School, both working and teaching students during Earth Week. 

Our adjunct social worker has a holistic approach to mental health maintenance and offers activities to support students in a variety of different ways.

Students attended an Outdoor Skills Workshop where their project was to create camp stoves using soda cans.

Our community garden is one way that semesters become interwoven with one another. One semester will plant while the next may harvest. 

The Sylvania Wilderness Traverse, a planned winter camping trip that became a very foggy and damp spring camping trip.

Between maple syrup boiling and the Iron Chef style competition in Outdoor Skills class, the LRC has been smelling great lately!

A combined lesson in Outdoor Skills and Environmental Citizenship had ideal conditions to snowshoe, identify animal tracks and learn about local mining history as well as its impact.

Students did a lesson on climate change using Biltmore Sticks to estimate the amount of carbon dioxide sequestered in trees on campus.

In math class students were assigned the task of finding the shortest route to completing a journey to each of Conserve School's eleven Geocaches.

Spring is an exciting time in the Northwoods. Snow is melting, birds are chirping and sap is flowing. CS18 got their first lesson in Maple Tree Tapping last week!

Students recently had the benefit of Mutual Aid Disaster and Beehive Collective organizations as Guest Speakers in Stewardship.

With Jim Lowenstein's vision in mind, Earth Art students learn about natural history by drawing and painting in the Conserve School Natural History Museum.

The Outdoor Skills class embraces cross country skiing both in a track and in the backcountry as a means of lifelong recreation.

Science Teaching Fellow, Emma, takes inspiration from the hardships of Rosalind Franklin and sees her own grandmother in a new light.

Teaching Fellow, Martha Torstenson was awarded a Fulbright in Norway researching seasonal adaptations and how they relate to resilience to climate change.

Students in math class learned how to use mathematical modeling to explore how pollution might flow through a chain of lakes.

The Birkebeiner is a historic and festive ski race for snow enthusiasts. This is my story of Conserve School at The Birkie this year.

Lake Ecology and Tracking are just a few of the programs our Ecology team partners with Soar Charter School to provide.

While skiing, Environmental Citizenship students discussed climate change and it's affect on snow sports industries. 

Spanish class takes morning nature walks and immerses themselves in the Spanish language through conversation. 

In a combined English and History lesson students mounted an expedition into the winter wilderness.

In this “Skills Workshop”, 25 students worked together to build six “Quinzees” – snow shelters you can sleep inside.

Outdoor Skills and Science staff partnered up to plan a lesson that included both compass navigation and tree identification.

Many classes are honoring Black History Month in their lessons and projects. Earth Art Students learned about the quilt makers of Gee's Bend.

Field Sketching is an important combined Art and Science lesson that happens at the beginning of each semester.

In Science, students were asked to observe five different trees and note their major characteristics while learning about Wisconsin's last glacial event.

CS18 Students study the National Wilderness Preservation System in English and History class through research, imagination, and artwork.

Earth Art starts the semester with a tea party that takes students on an imaginary journey looking at crafts from different places around the world.

Every January, Wisconsin Association for Environmental Education hosts Winter Workshop for Wisconsin's Educators.

Move-In Weekend is an exciting time for staff and students; a whirlwind of new beginnings, activities and campus exploration. 

Staff, faculty, and campus services have been preparing in a vast variety of ways for the arrival of the CS18 student body.

The question of "how to be human," has been an underlying theme throughout the semester in AP Environmental Science class.

Outdoor Skills class learns Wilderness First Aid and explores possible scenarios with hands on learning in their outdoor classroom.

At Conserve School students form a connection with nature through their "Phenology Spot" and reflecting on their "Sense of Place."

Students in Spanish class learned how to make empanadas together and then engaged in the tradition of "sobremesa."

Our English class, Wilderness Voices, examines perspectives in literature through "Windows and Mirrors" while spending an afternoon outside.

The Taking Action Project (TAP) is a cornerstone of the Stewardship in Action Class at Conserve School.

The art room has been a busy place! A recent guest teacher and artisan, Charles Nickles, taught students how to make rings from wood.

Stewardship in Action recently did a unit on Art as Activism where they learned several print making techniques and much more.

Students from CS17 built and practiced their ice skating skills at the Snowflake Ice Rink in Land O' Lakes, Wisconsin.

The observation of nature, phenology, is both an art and a science. Students each have their own phenology spot to observe and record their surroundings.

A History class field trip to the Norwich Mine helps students understand the mining history of the Upper Peninsula.

Math students recently studied Fibonacci numbers using monominos, then ventured into recursion and The Golden Ratio.

La mesa de español is a popular lunchtime activity for students who want to improve or maintain their foreign language skills.

The history of Lumberjacking in this region of the country gets a lesson in log splitting in Michael Salat's history class.

In Earth Art, students create characters, Environmental Heroes, from leaves and other found materials to share with the Conserve School Community.

Science Teacher, Leanna Jackan hosted a late night candlelight bog hike where students explored both folktales and scientific explanations of bogs.

Director of Student Support, Phil DeLong, writes about the intentional support measures that Conserve School provides to support its students.

In Wilderness Voices, Conserve School's English class, students reenacted one of the strangest tales in Alaskan literature.

Yesterday, with excitement, students embarked on their Solo trips, a mainstay of the Conserve School experience.

A group of students led by Teaching Fellows spent a day volunteering with the Friends of the Porcupine Mountains clearing trails for the coming ski season.

In Stewardship in Action students learned about ways to turn invasive species into food, fuel, fiber, and building material.

Students stay busy building skills and proficiency in academics, art and the outdoors. This past weekend they got to share these experiences with their families.

Families with students in Earth Art, participate in an Earth Art printing project in the art room during Family Weekend.

Students explored the world of fungi both artistically and scientifically. Learning about and hunting mushrooms in the forest and then painting them in the art room.

The Five Lake Loop is a favorite lesson for both students and teachers alike! It is a combined History and English lesson that traverses the Sylvania.

Important lessons in Outdoor Skills prior to the Five Lake Loop and Exploration Week are portaging and canoe t-rescues.

Last week's beautiful weather lent itself wonderfully to the outdoor weaving, Earth Art, project in the commons.

This week in science class, CS17 made the first step towards building a long term monitoring plan of white tail deer population on campus.

Herbivores, omnivores and carnivores, predators and prey, this is "Life and Death in the Forest." Read about this outdoor science lesson.

Math students got out of the classroom last week and went outside and into the woods to use fractals for measuring ferns.

English Teacher, Jeff Rennicke, takes time to tackle the relationship we all have with fear in the wilderness in a lesson called, "The Trail of Eyes."

Conserve School has adopted a segment of the NCT in The Trapp Hills region of Upper Michigan. Students volunteer to help maintain the trail.

In Stewardship class students harvested wild edibles, made delicious recipes, and came up with their own guidelines for harvesting with respect and for sustainability.

Our new English Teaching Fellow, Noah, from Detroit has shared a journal entry from his first camping trip in the Sylvania Wilderness during a staff training expedition.

Michael and Jeff, History and English teachers respectively combined lessons both in the classroom and on the Lowenwood Estate to rewrite "The Wilderness Act."

Our Spanish language teacher, Kathleen, taught a lesson in mindfulness entirely in Spanish to encourage both listening and thinking in Spanish. 

Art teachers, Robert and Nancy kicked off the semester with a tea ceremony introducing students to crafts and natural materials used in art around the world.

...the power of the solo experience becomes clear. Through spending over 24 hours in a single area, some of the more intricate workings of this campus became familiar.