From the Boone County Nature School · Columbia, Missouri
Take the classroom outside.
It's more possible than you think.
Hundreds of ready-to-teach outdoor lessons, videos, and honest advice from Joe Brown, for teachers who want their students outside, hands-on, and off screens, without giving up the standards.
Five lessons you can teach this week, plus one outdoor idea every Friday. No spam. Unsubscribe any time.
20+
Years teaching science
Hundreds
Outdoor lessons written
10.3K
YouTube subscribers
Columbia, Missouri
Sound familiar?
Everyone wants kids off screens. Then Monday happens.
Management
“What if it turns into recess?”
Thirty kids, one field, and no walls. You need routines that work outdoors, not a louder voice. There are three, and they take a week to teach.
Standards
“Will it even count?”
Your principal wants the standard on the board. Outdoor lessons can hit science practices, speaking and listening, and measurement harder than a worksheet does, if you plan them that way.
Logistics
“What about weather, risk, and paperwork?”
A ten-minute risk check, a permission script your principal will sign, and a rainy-day swap list turn “someday” into next Tuesday.
“The positive impact of spending time outside on mental health is well documented.”
Joe Brown, at the dedication of the nature school's council house · Columbia Daily Tribune, October 2023
The Outside Edu method
Three moves, every lesson.
01
Start with one.
One lesson, thirty minutes, the space you already have. Confidence comes from reps, not from a curriculum overhaul.
02
Set the structure.
Boundaries, a gather signal, and a job for every student. Outdoor management is a system, and you can teach it to a class in a week.
03
Stack the standards.
Every lesson maps to what you already teach: science practices, speaking and listening, measurement and data, writing from observation.
Free download
The Outdoor Classroom Starter Kit
Everything you need to teach your first five lessons outside, this week, with the space and the kids you already have.
- Five of Joe's lessons, K–8, thirty minutes each, no special gear
- The one-page outdoor routine card: boundaries, signals, jobs
- A permission letter your principal will actually sign
- The rainy-day swap list so weather never cancels the plan
Free. You'll also get the Friday email. Unsubscribe any time.
Browse by topic
Getting started
Routines & management
Standards alignment
Weather & seasons
Safety & permission
Science outdoors
Literacy outdoors
Math outdoors
Urban schoolyards
Free
Free resource library
Printable lessons, checklists, letters, and posters. Yours for an email address.
Browse the library →
Members
Membership
The full lesson library, a monthly outdoor plan, standards crosswalks, and a room full of teachers doing this with you.
See what's inside →Membership · opening soon
Everything you need to teach outside all year.
The free kit gets you through the first week. Membership gets you through the school year.
- The full lesson library: 120+ lessons, K–8, searchable by subject and standard
- The monthly outdoor plan: what to teach outside this month, and how
- Standards crosswalks for NGSS, Common Core ELA and Math, and state science standards
- The community: teachers trading what worked (and what didn't) this week
- Monthly office hours with Joe
Founding member pricing
$9/month
or $79/year · sample prices · cancel any time
Join the waitlist and you'll get founding-member pricing locked in when doors open.
Schools and districts: site licenses and live PD →
Who's behind this
Hi, I'm Joe Brown.
I've taught science for more than twenty years, and I'm the first teacher at the Boone County Nature School, where 2,200 fifth-graders from every district in Boone County spend seven days a year learning outdoors. I've written hundreds of outdoor lessons along the way. After this school year I'm retiring from the classroom to help other teachers do this, full time. Outside Edu is everything I wish someone had handed me the first year I tried it.
- First teacher at the Boone County Nature School, a partnership of Columbia Public Schools and the Missouri Department of Conservation, open since 2024
- Missouri Chapter of the American Fisheries Society Citizen's Award, 2011, for a middle-school fishing, pond-ecology, and water-quality program
- BA in Biology and MAE in Unified Sciences, Truman State · certified NASP archery instructor · Missouri Department of Conservation Discover Nature Fishing volunteer
On video
Joe has been teaching on camera for years.
Mancycle DIY, Joe's home-and-garden channel, has 251 videos, 10,300 subscribers, and four million views. Outside Edu lessons get the same treatment: short, filmed on site at the nature school, and ready to teach the next morning.
One outdoor lesson idea, every Friday.
Short, practical, and ready to teach the following week.