Spring and Fall Programs

looking at minerals

 

Season Dates

  1. Late April through June, and September through October. 

Length of Program

  1. 4 days - Students arrive Tuesday morning (around 10:30), stay three nights and depart Friday morning.The four days are filled with outdoor activities, hikes, boat rides, and team building games; all to help them understand their surroundings! 
Click for Sample Schedule
 

Subjects taught

  1. Forest and wildlife ecology
  2. Astronomy
  3. Water Cycle
  4. Geology
  5. Environmental Awareness
  6. Sierra Nevada Natural History  
  7. Respect and Cooperation

Activities Include

  1. Hike around Spooner Lake
  2. Boat ride on Lake Tahoe
  3. Night hike
  4. Star-gazing and constellation stories
  5. Playing games, journaling, singing, skits, and more!
The best thing about Great Basin Outdoor School is: "Learning about astronomy!" - Winter 2011 Student

About the Site

Camp Galilee is set in a Jeffrey pine forest sloping down to the shore of Lake Tahoe at 6229 feet. Though the site is small but beautiful. Program participants often find themselves staring out at the lake. The shore includes sandy beach and shingled metamorphic cobbles. To extend the Camp Galilee site, GBOS offers a field trip to Spooner Lake and a boat trip from Zephyr Cove with Marine Research & Education, Inc.

walking through aspen grove

Spooner Lake 

"The most interesting thing I learned about myself is that I can hike three miles!" - Wolverine, Fall 2010

On their second morning at camp, students will load onto a bus and head to Spooner Lake, a short five minute drive away. Groups of students will be led by their naturalists around the two-mile trail that loops around the lake. Most of the day is spent playing scientific games, participating in writing activities, and observing the natural processes and interactions between organisms around them.

Spooner Lake area, at 7000 feet, is the most diverse instructional area available to GBOS. The lake environment provides opportunity for wildlife and water studies. The students are able to explore the shoreline, wet and dry meadow, riparian, sagebrush and bitterbrush, aspen grove, Jeffrey pine forest, and white fir/aspen forest environments that are available. Bird life is abundant around Spooner Lake, with osprey, hawks, ducks, geese, and shorebirds. Students have the opportunity to experience the wildlife whether it is by looking at birds through binoculars or fetching invertebrates from the lake and viewing them through magnifying glasses.
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looking at tempurature on boat

Marine Research Boat Trip at Zephyr Cove

On their third morning (usually Thursday), students will take another short drive, this time to Zephyr Cove- weather permitting. Marine Research and Education hosts trips on the Prophet, a fishing and research boat used to introduce students to the ecology and protection of Lake Tahoe. From the boat students have the opportunity to observe and measure water quality factors and how humans might affect such factors. A highlight of the boat trip is learning about the food chain from phytoplankton to kokanee salmon. The boat provides an up-close look at some of the tiny creatures found in the lake water. In addition to the on-the-water learning, Marine Research gives a demonstration of the Lake Tahoe watershed and some of the environmental issues and solutions involved.

 Tahoe Environmental Research Center (TERC)  

If there is adverse weather, this is no problem for us! Instead of a boat ride, we visit the Tahoe Environmental Research Center in Incline Village, NV. We take a tour of the Platinum LEED Certified green building, still get to examine plankton up close, and examine ways to test water quality and how we might protect Lake Tahoe. At the research center we also watch a 3-D video of the creation of Lake Tahoe and the surrounding area. Who knew recycled materials could provide us with so much information!

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