Hands-on Learning, Nearby Nature

IOOBY (In Our Own Backyard)

Who: 2nd -6th grade classrooms
What: Four field trips and two classroom visits per year

Designed for second through sixth grade students, In Our Own Backyard is our award-winning environmental education program. IOOBY gets your students outside with four guided field trips throughout the school year to the same nearby natural space. 

IOOBY brings science lessons to life for your students. Immersion in nature provides opportunities for collaborative problem solving, confidence-building, and creative thinking. 

Led by LandPaths’ qualified and engaging field specialists, your students will each spend about 20 hours a year in nature, experiencing hands-on lessons centered around these themes:

  • Exploration and Discovery
  • Habitats 
  • Watersheds
  • Stewardship 

And we make your job easier by aligning IOOBY lessons with California’s Next Generation Science Standards, cutting down on your classroom planning and prep time.  Because you are visiting the same place throughout the year, students, teachers, and parent volunteers develop a lasting bond with the land. 

Questions

Want to get IOOBY at your school? Contact Youth Program Manager Jamie Nakama at (707) 544-7284, ext. 115 or jamie@landpaths.org.

Mark Mortensen, 4th grade teacher at McDowell Elementary School

" My students love our IOOBY experiences! The four pillars of Exploration and Discovery, Habitats, Watersheds, and Stewardship blend so well with our science lessons and with other programs in which our class is involved. By connecting to local natural spaces, often visited for the first time by them, I feel my students are more likely to feel a sense of stewardship that will last well beyond their school years. I only wish that all students could enjoy and benefit from this program. Our planet needs as many enlightened stewards as it can get! "

Thanks to these partners:

IOOBY is made possible by your generous donations and the following partners:

Stories from the Field

A Classroom Takes to the Land: A Day of Environmental Philosophy & Stewardship with Santa Rosa Junior College students

Tags: , , ,

by Miles Sarvis-Wilburn, Stewardship Field Specialist I met Professor Alexa Forrester for the first time at a LandPaths’ volunteer stewardship day. A professor of Philosophy at Santa …

A Classroom Takes to the Land: A Day of Environmental Philosophy & Stewardship with Santa Rosa Junior College students Read Article

Covid Policies at LandPaths

Tags:

For 25 years LandPaths has actively worked for land and community in Sonoma County. Our commitment is further strengthened during the immense mental, physical, and financial challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic. Since March of 2020, when shelter-in-place …

Covid Policies at LandPaths Read Article

Vamos a Yosemite con LandPaths 2022

Leer en español abajo Anastacia C. felt nervous when she first headed out on this year’s Vamos a Yosemite con LandPaths. She’d never been there before; she wasn’t …

Vamos a Yosemite con LandPaths 2022 Read Article

English Español 简体中文 繁體中文 Tiếng Việt ភាសាខ្មែរ
Scroll to Top