Flying Deer Nature Center at Mountain Road School
What skills do students develop?
- Wilderness self-sufficiency: being able to take care of one’s physical needs of shelter, food, fire and drinking water.
- Nature awareness: being alert and tuned-in to the surrounding natural landscape; able to sit still in nature and use the senses fully.
- Community skills: able to communicate, make decisions and resolve conflict as group, all in a peaceful way.
- Self-empowerment: able to recognize, face and dissolve the inner blocks that arise as a result of encountering outer challenges, thus cultivating a newer, more positive and accurate sense of self.
What knowledge do students acquire?
- Individual local wildlife species: learn names of mammals, insects, birds, amphibians, reptiles and herbaceous plants, how to identify them, locate, and in some cases preserve them.
- The local landscape as a whole: getting to know the land intimately through map-making, wandering, place-naming, and exciting, fun, meaningful encounters with nature.
How do we teach?
Students gain their skills and knowledge through playing games, practicing routines, choosing projects, and through unplanned nature-encounters. The most memorable experience or valuable teaching of the day can come in the form of encountering a bizarre insect, discovering a salamander, or glimpsing a rare bird. Stories and songs also spice the day.
Community building is an integral technology in our wilderness curriculum, creating emotional safety and a sense of the power that can be accessed by working with one another. Demonstrating their understanding of this teaching, five and six year olds carry tarps full of leaves together, navigating through the forest while working as one to create shelter for themselves. Second, third and fourth graders work tirelessly to together to create fire without matches and fifth and sixth graders work cooperatively to build debris huts for their overnight campout. Children learn to help one another across icy streams and up steep hillsides, turning challenge into fun group building games.
In addition to teaching the group, we strive to provide individuals with quality mentoring, paying attention to and feeding their interests and passions.
Who are the instructors?
Devin Franklin, Flying Deer Nature Center Director
Devin Franklin
Devin has discovered his thirst for the Wilderness Teachings in 1994 and has been walking the wilderness path ever since. Devin has studied Survival, Tracking, and Awareness skills with Dan Fisher of Wilderness School in Maine and Tom Brown Jr. at the Tracker School in New Jersey. He has trained for six years in Naturalist Mentoring and Community-Building skills through Jon Young and the Wilderness Awareness School, as well as Mark Morey and the Vermont Wilderness School. Devin received a degree in Environmental Education from Prescott College in Arizona in 2001. He joined Flying Deer Nature Center in 1998, where he was mentored by Leonard Brown in the ways of Coyote Teaching and the Medicine Wheel. Devin deeply loves working with children and nature through creating the Naturalist Community that has been his home since 1998.
Michelle Apland Flying Deer Nature Center
Michelle Apland
Michelle’s world of wilderness skills was launched when she spent five-and-a-half months thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail at the age of nineteen years old. Soon afterwards, she began taking classes with the Tracker School in New Jersey, focusing on Philosophy and Healing. Michelle complements these studies with training in naturalist mentoring and community building with Wilderness Awareness School and Vermont Wilderness School. In 2001, Michelle earned degrees from Prescott College in Environmental Education and Eco-psychology. She has enhanced her skills by studying herbalism and mentoring with Lorene Wapotich of Her Feet on the Earth and becoming a Kripalu Yoga teacher. Michelle discovered Flying Deer Nature Center in 1999 and fell in love with the beauty of what she saw. She returned in 2000 to take a leading role in guiding its growth as a Naturalist Community. Michelle is passionate about working with children and families and specializes in leading Daughters of the Earth Programs, a concentration within FDNC for women and girls.
