Port Angeles Nature School

We are Port Angeles Nature School, a project of CascadiaNow!: a brand new environmental education nonprofit located at the gateway to Olympic National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and Biosphere Reserve! We have a world class wilderness wonderland with ancient rainforests; glacier-capped mountains; and over 70 miles of protected Pacific coastline here in our big backyard.  Along with nine native tribes, and an incredible diversity of city, county, and state parks, the Olympic Peninsula is teeming with rich cultural and natural histories. 

Our mission is to instill the beautiful stories of this land in our students, and translate those stories into equally rich educational experiences that quench a growing mind’s thirst for knowledge and hunger for adventure.  We want our students to love where they live and to love learning!

We are a group of: parents, children, families, friends, teachers, rangers, nurses, technicians, counselors, firefighters, artists, yogis, historians, natives, non-natives, transplants, mathematicians, gardeners, hunters, gatherers, farmers, scientists, chefs, and a few kids in grown-up shoes, who all love where we live, and want a school for our children to grow outdoors in.

Development of Port Angeles Nature School has been a collaborative effort of citizens, and with the help of our fiscal sponsor, Cascadia Now!, we are working our way toward a sustainable, self-sufficient organization.

Our goal is to eventually provide place-based experiential learning opportunities that connect students of all ages and abilities to the rich cultural and natural histories of the Olympic Peninsula.  We will start with the outdoor preschool to fill a dire need for early-education programs in our community, then extend our reach to benefit students in all of our local schools, and the Port Angeles community as a whole.