The Vision
The vision of the Natural Science Academy is to develop a "green" school where the facility, operations, and educational program reflect a commitment to environmental sustainability and to preparing our young citizens to become leaders and models of exemplary, responsible citizenship, and stewards of the natural environment.
What People Are Saying About NSA
The curriculum at NSA gives exactly what we want for our children, an education that will not only allow them to be an American but one that will allow them to thrive in an increasingly multicultural country and world.
NSA Parents
The Mission
The Natural Science Academy provides innovative, inquiry-based and place-based learning opportunities for K-5 students utilizing the unique environmental assets of the area and a variety of community partnerships. With support from Minnesota's Audubon Center of the North Woods, NSA promotes academic achievement in the areas of science, math, technology, literacy, music, and the arts and will develop students' social responsibility through experiential education, interdisciplinary environmental studies, and inquiry-based learning projects. NSA strives to develop the capacity in all students for working cooperatively with others, for empathy and compassion, for thinking critically and creatively, and for becoming adept learners, community leaders, independent thinkers, and lifelong environmental stewards.
Purpose And Need
When traveling from village to village, the Masai elders of East Africa have a greeting that translates to, "How are the children?" The greeting suggests that with the welfare of the children goes the welfare of the entire community. Our own experiences tell us that children who feel loved, appreciated, and cared for are more likely to love, appreciate, and care for others and for the world they live in. Children need to feel that they belong and that they have an identity within their community. They learn how to nurture through the experience of being nurtured. They learn respect for others and for the environment through positive experiences with others in the natural environment.
Today's students typically have little exposure to the natural world. Traditional public and private schools offer occasional field trips to the outdoors, but occasional outings are not enough for students to develop knowledge and an understanding of the natural world around them and a desire to preserve its integrity. In order for children to learn to care about the future of our environment, of our world, we must care enough about them to provide them with regular and frequent educational experiences in natural settings. They must be inspired and impelled through experiences in the outdoors to learn about natural systems, about the interconnectedness and interdependence of all living and nonliving things. Young students must be nurtured to develop strong identities within their immediate community in order for them to blossom into the leaders of tomorrow and caring stewards of our natural environment.
Dr. Michael Frome, renowned conservationist, author, and environmental educator, for whom our school was originally named, has written this about education: "Education, with only a few exceptions, is about careers, jobs, success in a materialistic world, elitism, rather than caring and sharing; it's about facts and figures, cognitive values, rather than feeling and art derived from the heart and soul; it's about conformity, being safe in a structured society, rather than individualism, the ability to question society and to constructively influence change in direction. A change in direction is critical and imperative. Our most precious gift to the future, if you will ask me, is a point of view embodied in the protection of wild places that no longer can protect themselves." (From the International Journal of Wilderness, August 2001: V.7 No.2.)
The founders of this school believe that if we are to develop citizenship and stewardship in our young students, all learning must begin with the place in which a student lives. Embracing the philosophy of place-based education, we believe that elementary students often lose their "sense of place" through curriculum and instruction that focuses too quickly or intensely on national or global issues. Children will develop a strong sense of place through daily educational experiences that take them out into their immediate community, outside of traditional classrooms and school buildings, and into their neighborhoods and the natural world around them. Many of today's schools fail to recognize the importance of developing each student's sense of place that is, an authentic attachment to and feelings of belonging within their community. We believe that one of the most effective ways to instill compassion for others, the values of stewardship and preservation of our natural environment, and leadership skills in our citizens of tomorrow is to provide opportunities for young children to explore, connect with, and learn to understand and appreciate their community through experiences in natural settings.
The purpose of the Natural Science Academy is to prepare our young citizens to become leaders and models of exemplary, responsible citizenship and stewards of the natural environment. We will also promote academic achievement in the areas of science, math, technology, literacy, music, and the arts.
What are the unique characteristics of this school?
NSA is innovative in its utilization of integrated-interdisciplinary, inquiry-based environmental studies, community partnerships, and place-based learning.
Using Environment as an Integrating Context for learning (EIC) and Project GLOBE as instructional methods and techniques, NSA utilizes the school's facility, surroundings, the community, and the natural environment as a framework and classroom for instruction.
Another unique characteristic of NSA is its emphasis on visual arts, creative writing, poetry, and drama, woven throughout the curriculum. Classroom teachers are assisted in the development of fine arts projects with assistance from community artists and specialists.
The school is innovative in its teaching of movement education and lifelong fitness through both indoor and outdoor experiential pursuits facilitated in natural settings.
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