NATURE IMMERSION PROGRAM
The Nature Immersion Program seamlessly delivers Thorne’s in-school, after school, field trip, and summer camp programs to youth at low income and culturally diverse schools. The program provides all students at a school with between 27 and 225 hours of Thorne’s unique brand of hands-on environmental education programming during 1st through 5th grade.
PROGRAM OVERVIEW
Our community’s lowest income and Latino youth have less access to nature and the outdoors, and therefore do not receive the many benefits provided by nature and time spent outdoors, including improved academic achievement and physical, social, and emotional well-being. To address this challenge, Thorne offers the Nature Immersion Program at low-income and culturally diverse Boulder County schools.
All students at participating schools receive a three-visit Thorne In-School Program, and 2nd graders also participate in Thorne’s day-long Field Trip Program. Students who enjoy the In-School and Field Trip Programs have the opportunity to further their learning with Thorne by opting into a twelve-week After School Program (free of charge to 48 students at each school each year) and/or week-long Summer Camp (free of charge to 24 students at each school each year). Throughout grades 1-5, each student at a participating school will receive a minimum of 27 hours of Thorne programming, and all students who opt into all of the optional programming will have the opportunity to receive 225 hours of Thorne programming.
During the coming year, NIP will be offered at nine of Boulder County’s fourteen Title 1 schools. In total, more than 70% of the 3,000 students at these schools participate in their school’s Free and Reduced Lunch Program, an indicator of poverty, and/or are students of color. For many of our NIP participants, Thorne’s programming provides their first exposure to the beauty and wonder of nature and engagement with topics like sustainability and conservation.
The cost to deliver NIP at one school is $30,000, and most typically the school and parents pay little or no funds to Thorne in order to participate in the program. Contributions to Thorne’s NATURE FOR ALL Initiative help to fund NIP. Please consider making a gift today so that Thorne can continue to grow the program and someday expand to deliver NIP to all of our community’s underserved youth!
If you are an administrator at a Title 1 school and would like to know more about NIP, please contact our school programs team at schoolprograms@nullthornenature.org or by calling 303.499.3647.