CRISTA Camps at Miracle Ranch - Outdoor Education-Boys and girls canoing

Outdoor Education

Experience our immersive outdoor education program that fosters personal growth, environmental stewardship, and hands-on learning through exhilarating adventures in nature.

Outdoor Education at Miracle Ranch

Outdoor education offers a unique opportunity to combine the beauty of God’s creation with engaging learning environments. At Miracle Ranch, our hands-on classes create a space for students to explore nature, communicate discoveries with their peers, practice problem solving, and develop a caring mindset towards plants and animals. We use a three-part approach to our Outdoor Education.

Engaging Education

We want our classes to be informative, professional, and fun. We strive to provide educational experiences that allow students to walk away with a deeper understanding of the subject material while creating lifelong memories.

Hands-On Application

Each of our classes include a time to discover and apply what students have learned with an activity to their lives. Student application allows knowledge gained during the lesson to be reinforced in a fun, interactive way while trying to see how this applies to their life and stewardship.

Intelligent Design

Outdoor Education provides many incredible examples of intelligent design of plants and animals in our world.  Miracle Ranch enjoys connecting Biblical devotions to our educational classes. For example, Jesus shares a vineyard picture in John 15 which says, “I am the vine, you are the branches. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine.”

Please contact Erik Henrikson at [email protected] / 253-851-4410 to learn more and register!

Download our helpful PDF of current course offerings!

CRISTA Camps 2023 Outdoor Education Classes

Archery
  • History

  • How they Work (physics of the bow and arrow)

  • How to fire properly

  • Parts of a bow and arrow

Agricultural Animal Science
  • Chickens

  • Horses

  • Goats, Sheep, and pigs

Boating
  • Boating Safety

  • Parts of a boat/paddle

  • Strokes

Conservation
  • What is conservation

  • Why does it matter

  • Keystone species

  • How can we help/hurt the planet?

Fire Building
  • Why do we build fires?

  • How do we build fires?

  • Materials and structures

  • Safety

Forestry
  • Trees (TREEt yourself)

  • Ferns (It’s FERN sure a fun one)

  • Moss/lichen (I LICHEN it a lot)

  • Monocots and dicots (You’ve COT to be there)

  • Forest layers and makeup

Habitats and Ecology
  • What is a habitat?

  • Common habitats and biomes

  • How we help our habitats

  • Trophic levels and keystone species

Orienteering
  • What is navigation?

  • How do compasses and maps help?

  • The four cardinal directions

  • Parts of a compass

Pond/Lake Study
  • Types of aquatic biomes

  • Water cycle

  • Collecting samples

  • Microscopes and microorganisms

Owl Pellets: (additional fee)
  • What are owl pellets?

  • What are we expecting to see

  • Pellet dissection

Rock Climbing
  • Types of climbing

  • Gear and equipment

  • Knots

  • Rock holds

Shelter building
  • Survival skills

  • Materials and their uses

  • Types of shelters

Survival Skills
  • The seven rules of survival

  • How do we gather what we need?

  • Things to avoid (poison, danger, risk)

Team Building
  • Games and challenges

  • Debrief

Wildlife studies
  • Native wildlife (what lives here)

  • How we identify common species

  • Tracks and signs of inhabitants