I have my Bachelors and Masters degree in the biological sciences, and my single subject teaching credential in the life sciences and have been teaching the sciences since 2008. In 2019 I moved from a public school format to Charter School called Wildflower Open Classroom, an open structure, where we had more flexibility with our teaching program and style. Our middle school program is unique in that we blend our grades, and take the kids on multiple over night immersions such as camping in San Francisco, backpacking in the Sierras, and a 4-day raft trip down the Sacramento River. We also use a rite of passage curriculum during which we spend a lot of time outdoors, learning about fire, and other wildnerness survival skills, and guide kids to make fire with their own handmade bowdrill kit. In the Winter of 2022 I added Forest Bathing to my repertior and began facilitating In 2024 I worked with a private Forest preschool owner and my school Director to develop the first free-public, Forest Transitional Kindergarten in California. As an extension of this program the rest of our campus classes participate in "Forest Days", and schooling concept I first learned about from David Sobel. We are in our second year of these two programs, and finding great success and joy for kids, teachers, and families, and look forward to continuing growing and developing the program through the years.