Outdoor Classroom Elk City OK

09/02/2026

A cool opportunity!!

Join us for the next Twisted Teacher workshop on Sept 29th.

08/26/2026

📣📣Early Childhood (ages 1-6) Project Learning Tree Trunk is now available for check out!!

Spread the word to all formal and informal educators in western Oklahoma!!!

❓What is it: Oklahoma Project Learning Tree developed and deployed these educational trunks throughout the state for formal/informal educators to check out and use in their classrooms/daycares/homes to teach lessons from the Project Learning Tree curriculum book.

👤Who can check it out: Educators across all learning environments, including traditional classrooms, homeschools, childcare settings, and informal learning environments. These are available to EVERYONE in the state of Oklahoma.

✅How to check it out: Click the link below or type it in and follow the prompts. The state PLT coordinator processes the requests and lets the closest host know of the request and lets them coordinate with you, the requester, for pickup instructions. Theses are ALL across the state, so if you know an educator hundreds of miles away, let them know!!

🔗https://bit.ly/OKPLTrunk

📚What is in it? A PLT curriculum book that has all sorts of lessons you can use as outlined or adjust to your preferences. Included are all kinds of supplies you can use in carrying out the lesson plans in the book. We don't have every supply you will need, but there is plenty to start off with. There is everything from regular printing paper to flower presses🏵! Check out the pictures below.

💸💲What does it cost: NOTHING!! These are provided to you at absolutely NO cost! Only cost is the gas to pick up the trunk.

08/25/2026

📣📣 I just picked up our Early childhood (ages 1-6) Project Learning Tree trunk last week. This is in addition to our K-8 trunk already available for checkout.

We also received more supplies for our K-8 trunk. 🙌🙌

📸Check out the pictures for the new supplies contained in the K-8 trunk.

🔗There is a flier with the link to check the trunks out or click https://bit.ly/OKPLTrunk

👂And stay tuned for pictures of the Early childhood trunk supplies!

07/23/2026

Station #5 getting the final coat of paint

07/22/2026

07/22/2026

⛔How bad looking were our benches and tables at the education stations you ask? I visited Rob early this morning to check in on his progress and snapped these pictures of one station he hadn't gotten to yet. I also snapped pictures of one he completed a few weeks ago.

☀These benches and tables were installed 25 years ago and have seen countless number of children sit on them. This year they are getting an over due facelift.

🎨With money left from our Northfork Electric grant for our new stage, Rob has been tackling the sanding, priming, and painting of the benches and tables used during any Outdoor Classroom/Resource Days we have at our facility.

🤫These are not the only updates we will be implementing at our facility. Over the next two years, there are multiple upgrades in the works........... 👀👀Stay tuned for more details‼️‼️

07/06/2026

Want to attract butterflies to your yard? Look up what their host plants are, go to your local greenhouse and see if they have them, and plant them in your yard! Once they start to flower, get your coffee or tea and do a walk about to watch the butterflies 🥰

06/25/2026

Look what is getting a facelift this summer! 🙌🙌

The benches and tables have been in place at the North Fork Environmental Education Center for over 25 years‼️😮

We started with rebuilding the stage thanks to Northfork Electric Cooperative and now we have set our sights on the station tables and benches. The last of the old paint has to be ground off first, followed by a coat of primer, and then the final coat of white paint. Our goal is to have them all done before our annual Outdoor Classroom event for area 5th graders in October.

🫟The table in this picture has primer on it and will get the final coat of paint soon, but it already looks 100% better. Rob Ezzell is putting in the hard and hot work this summer to make this project possible. 💪

Stay tuned for update pictures!

06/09/2026

Some great information about the infamous June Beetle (beetles).

In honor of June Bug Day, we've asked OBS entomologist James Hung to tell us a little more about them...

"June bug" is a catch-all term for many members of beetle family that emerge in notable numbers in June (or May, in Oklahoma). Even the genus Phyllophaga, comprising most of the common brown beetles that struggle upside down on your front porch, contains more than 400 species (!!) in North America. They spend up to several years underground developing as larvae (grubs) where they help cycle nutrients and aerate the soil. June bugs have brief adult lives eating leaves and trying their darndest to reproduce—it's hard to get mad at them when you know that the beetle that just crashed into you spent 3 years underground prepping for just few nights' worth of activity.

Most species are nocturnal and navigate in part using the moon as reference—hence why they end up getting "sucked into" porch lights and other sources of artificial light at night. They seem exceptionally clumsy because the digging part of their biological machinery requires more fine-tuning for their daily survival than their aboveground navigational abilities: they need to be able to burrow into the soil to avoid predators by day and to lay eggs, whereas their flight needs to just be good enough to get them from point A to point B (where they often just crash-land and get backup).

June bugs always struggle on their back on concrete because in their evolutionary history, such flat surfaces are exceedingly rare—they could always count on some 3D structure to cling onto to flip back up (leaves, stems, uneven soil terrain), so they never needed to right themselves this way. Other than being a nuisance when they use your face as a landing strip, they are harmless—and in fact quite delicious, according. If you go to a park and find s**t of raccoons and coyotes, or owl pellets around this time of year, you can often see many fragments of beetle armor--those don't break down easily, but the insides are very nutrient-dense.

We hope you'll take some time this evening to appreciate the June Bugs on your porch!

05/07/2026

We loved having the Elk City 3rd graders out and the Teacher Prep students of WTC as the speakers. We thoroughly enjoy partnerships like this that benefit everyone that participates!