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“To explore and affiliate with life is a deep and complicated process in mental development. To an extent still undervalued in philosophy and religion, our existence depends on this propensity, our spirit is woven from it hope rises on its currents.”
― Edward O. Wilson, Biophilia

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Why nature is so great for our health | 10 ways to connect with nature

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"I remember a patient with an early stage of Alzheimer's Dementia telling about his experience with nature walks after being prescribed a park nearby his house. He said, "Being in contact with trees, birds, the sun ... turned me back to those happy memories of my childhood when my mind was sharp and bright. After every walk, I feel energized, joyful, and reminded of simple things. Also, I'm sleeping much better at night." It is so satisfying to find a tool which facilitates well-being in an accessible way!"

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"I remember a patient with an early stage of Alzheimer's Dementia telling about his experience with nature walks after being prescribed a park nearby his house. He said, "Being in contact with trees, birds, the sun ... turned me back to those happy memories of my childhood when my mind was sharp and bright.

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I found that so often I was afraid to be alone with my own thoughts and memories. I spent the first day building an ant village, then counting my and organizing the peanuts in my GORP bag and then after about a day I could no longer avoid....

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Kolb explored

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Learning by doing- creating an experience that is intentionally designed but even more importantly placed where a client can retrieve it...lets practice this next session

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Kurt Hahn Brotherhood Mentoring Training

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Can we have relationships with other animals? 

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Can we have relationships with other animals? 

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Relationships shape our world.

A healthy relationship with an animal can be similar to our relationships with other people. We communicate requests, they choose how to respond, and we react to that response. The outcome of this sequence will end up strengthening or weakening our relationship.

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Introduction to the Trust Technique with James French

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https://vimeo.com/441035228/0f630995f0

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Exposure to nature has been linked to a host of benefits, including improved attention, lower stress, better mood, reduced risk of psychiatric disorders and even upticks in empathy and cooperation.

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Is it really possible to spend time in nature and around wildlife and leave no trace? 

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Is it really possible to spend time in nature and around wildlife and leave no trace? 

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What is the moral imperative required of us as social workers if we ask other non-human animals and nature to support us?

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Recolor the Outdoors | Alex Bailey | TEDxSanAntonio

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Ecoterric Disease can occur when our relationship with nature is broken or threatened. This lecture offers multiple approaches to building the forest into your practice.

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The health benefits of connection to nature at DuckDuckGo

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"You're doing in wrong, dissecting the bird trying to find the song. It's a miracle that you're here at all"

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The Mountain Goats - Going To Alaska (WFMU, 2000)

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"I've been living in a hole in the mountain, ain't no sins in there"

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Relates to some of the climate change issues that we discussed in today's class

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Andrew Bird wrote this song about the climate crisis~ it's very powerful

"I'm coming to the brink of a great disaster
End just has to be near
The earth spins faster, whistles right past you
Whispers death in your ear
Don't pretend you can't hear
Don't pretend you can't

I can hear your tendrils still digging
For everything that's walked this earth once living
Then to be exhumed and burned to vapor
Can you save her?
Now she's in the air
Radical and free
Neither here nor there
She's obliged to no one
She's obliged to no one"

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diversity includes sound and non-human voices.....is this a therapeutic narrative?

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Taufik Ardiansyah / EyeEm

From birdsong in the rainforest to whale calls in the oceans, the world is losing the variety of sounds that enriches life. Habitat loss, species extinctions, and industrial noise all contribute to this sonic loss, which cuts off a vital human connection to the Earth.

Sound is made of the most ephemeral stuff on Earth, insubstantial tremors of air. Yet sound is also the great connector and revealer. Because sound waves pass through and around obstacles, they link living beings into sonic information networks. Some of these networks are communicative - songs, music, and speech - and some amount to eavesdropping - predators and competitors listening to one another as they breathe, move, and eat. Listening, then, can reveal the unseen dynamics of the living world. In a time of crisis and rapid change, listening offers us a powerful way to connect and understand.

But what we hear is often sonic loss. Some of this loss is erasure through species extinction. The song of the Kauaʻi ʻōʻō, a honeyeater bird from Hawaii, or the Rabbs' fringe-limbed treefrog from central Panama will never again ring through forests. Another form of loss is the diminished sonic diversity of habitats: a reduction in the variety of melodies, the richness of layers of different sound frequencies, the range of different tempos, and the temporal variability of sonic expression through daily and seasonal cycles. Tree plantations or row crops are acoustically bland and anemic compared to the vigor and lush sonic variegations of a forest abounding in diverse life. Excess engine and industrial noise also causes loss of sonic diversity by smothering other sounds and fragmenting the acoustic links that formerly linked populations and communities. And then there is the loss caused by our inattention. When we cease to listen, the richness of human sensory experience, a necessary foundation for right action, is eroded.

At the global scale, distinctiveness is eroded. We've lost millions of singing whales and billions of vocalizing fish.

Every habitat on Earth has its own sonic signature, made of the thousands of voices present at each place. It took a long time for this sonic diversity to emerge. Predation likely kept a lid on sonic communication for hundreds of millions of years. The first animals in the oceans and on land could hear, especially in the low frequencies. To sing or cry out was therefore to invite death. To this day, vocal creatures are those that can quickly escape or defend themselves. The frog, cricket, and bird owe their songs, in part, to their jumping legs or wings.

Once communicative sound evolved, starting with ocean fishes and crustaceans and cricket-like insects on land, the creative forces of evolution soon diversified sound, taking simple cries and building the complexity and nuance that we hear around us today. These creative evolutionary processes worked over many time scales, and so sound reveals the many layers of life's generative powers. Sonic loss erodes the legacy of these different times and diminishes evolutionary creativity and possibility for the future.

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At the continental scale, plate tectonics and ancient movements of animal groups from one continent to another account for the markedly different soundscapes we encounter around the world. The bird communities of the Americas, for example, sound very different from those of Australia because only a few of Australia's diverse assemblage of ancient songbirds left the continent of their origin and dispersed to other places. These emigrants then radiated in the new lands, each finding its own acoustic path. On each continent and in each ocean, species adapted to physical and social conditions, further diversifying sound. The songs of forest species are adapted to transmission through dense foliage and are often slower and less complex than those of species that live in open country. Sexual selection added layers of exaggeration and extravagance, causing mating songs to diverge and explore new vocal extremes.

In a few mammals and birds, social learning of sounds spurred cultural evolution and the development of highly localized dialects and vocal fashions. In some species, among the white-crowned sparrows of the Bay Area on the California coast, for example, these dialects are fine-grained, changing on the scale of kilometers, a reflection of the short dispersal distances of the young. But in sparrow species whose young disperse farther, the dialects mark out large portions of the North American continent. For sexual selection and cultural evolution, especially, sonic communication was itself a diversifying force, a social signal that accelerated local adaptation of populations and divergence of species.

Now, at all these levels, we hear loss. At the global scale, distinctiveness is eroded. We've lost millions of singing whales and billions of vocalizing fish. In the North Atlantic, for example, the collapse of cod populations, down more than 99 percent in some areas, has eliminated most of the thrumming, grunting sounds that this species uses during the mating seasons. For whales, in the 20th century alone humans killed at least 2.9 million individuals, removing the sounds of sperm, fin, minke, humpback, and other species, turning oceans alive with song and calls into impoverished acoustic spaces. Because every lost fish and marine mammal formerly occupied a specific habitat, their demise creates a lost aquatic geography of sound, replaced with the drone of ship engines and crack of seismic air guns in search of buried oil. On land, homogenization of species caused by recent introductions of non-native species - such as European starlings and common mynas - and eradications of indigenous species leads to the convergence of soundscapes on different continents, especially in urban and agricultural areas.

Yet, much sonic diversity remains. One way to stem and reverse the loss is to hear and celebrate distinctiveness. The "100 Soundscapes of Japan," launched by that nation's Ministry of the Environment in 1996, does just this, honoring both natural and cultural sounds such as bird song, wind in reed beds, or the ringing of bells. Can we now imagine such a program in every part of the world, a way to draw sensory experience into community and thus create a culture of listening?

The now-rare regent honeyeater encounters so few elders that it has no chance to learn its species' song.

At smaller scales, within ecosystems, loss of sonic diversity not only reflects loss of species, but also changed rhythms of life. Some of these changes are accessible to human ears - the early arrivals of migrating birds or the loss of familiar insects or frogs - but others are more readily discernible with the help of recording and sound analysis technologies. The daily cycle of insect, bird, frog, and primate calls in logged forests in Kalimantan, Indonesia, for example, differed from unlogged forests, a pattern revealed by remote recording devices and statistical analysis of sounds across many weeks. Sound therefore not only gives us a way to assess biodiversity at one time and place, its ebb and flow reveal hidden dynamics of ecosystems.

At the level of the individual, the sonic crisis manifests as either too little sound or too much noise. The regent honeyeater, for example, is now so rare in New South Wales that the cross-generational sonic connections that sustain the bird's song have been frayed. Many of these honeyeaters encounter so few singing elders of their own species that they have no chance to learn their species' song. Instead, they sing attenuated songs or borrow distorted snippets from other species. This bodes ill for future successful breeding.

In urban areas and in the oceans, human-caused sound levels are so high that individuals of many vocal species must sing louder and higher to be heard over the din. In the most extreme cases in the oceans, sound from seismic exploration or military sonar is loud enough to directly harm animal bodies. Even at lower sound levels, the social networks of singers in noise are partly blocked, disrupting social dynamics.

The stresses of noise affect humans, too. The first urban noise complaints date to the origin of cities, recorded on Babylonian clay tablets. Now, over half of all humans live in cities, and there we are often subjected to alarming, uncontrollable, or unwanted sound. These burdens are not borne equally. Racist and classist city planning has imposed the heaviest toll of noise on minority and low-income neighborhoods. More than an annoyance, urban noise causes stress that disrupts learning, fragments sleep, and causes physiological harm such as increased rates of cardiovascular disease.

The sonic crisis extends from the global scale of continents and ocean basins, right down to the individual scale of singing birds and human city dwellers. At all these scales we have a crisis of inattention. "Not listening" is a form of sonic loss. The crises in which we live are not just "environmental," of the environs, but perceptual. When the most powerful species on Earth ceases to listen to the voices of others, calamity surely will ensue.

Listening to nature: The emerging field of bioacoustics. Read more.

We live embedded in systems designed to turn our attentions away from the voices of the living Earth, inward toward the human. The many ways that digital platforms and algorithms do this are well known and often deplored. Subtler are practices of unhearing in education and policy-making. We teach inside walls that exclude all living sounds from non-humans. Our curricula and lesson plans are tightly controlled, with no room for the call of a raven, the gust of wind in pine needles, or the allures of cricket song to redirect the pedagogical flow. The same is true in much of the work of corporations, governments, and even environmental organizations. Even when discussing the fate of living rivers or forests, we sequester ourselves, blocking all sensory connection, removing any possibility of learning from the very living beings whose fate we debate, let alone giving those beings the opportunity quite literally to be heard.

The vitality of the world depends, in part, on whether we turn our ears back to the Earth, hear both the beauty and brokenness of the living world, then act.

David George Haskell is a writer and a biologist. His latest book, Sounds Wild and Broken, explores the story of sound on Earth, illuminating and celebrating the emergence, diversification, and loss of the world's sounds. His 2012 book The Forest Unseen was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and won the National Academies' Best Book Award. A Guggenheim Fellow, he is a professor at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. More →

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Wild Sounds: The Loss of Sonic Diversity and Why It Matters

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From birdsong in the rainforest to whale calls in the oceans, the world is losing the variety of sounds that enriches life. Habitat loss, species extinctions, and industrial noise all contribute to this sonic loss, which cuts off a vital human connection to the Earth.

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magine cruising down a 10-lane highway and knowing that, high above your head, a mountain lion is quietly going along its way. This remarkable image could soon be reality for drivers on one of California's busiest roads, as the world's largest wildlife overpass begins construction this month.

The history-making project will comprise a green bridge built across the 101 highway near Los Angeles, creating a corridor between two parts of the Santa Monica mountains. Stretching 210ft long and 165ft wide, the overpass will allow safe passage for lizards, snakes, toads and mountain lions, with an acre of local plants on either side and vegetated sound walls to dampen light and noise for nocturnal animals as they slip across.

The project, nearly a decade in the making, comes at a crucial time. Highways in this car-heavy landscape crisscross critical habitat for the protected mountain lions and other animals, forcing them to make what can be deadly crossings. At least 25 of the big cats have been killed on Los Angeles freeways since 2002. The latest death was just weeks ago, on 23 March, when a young lion was struck and killed on the Pacific Coast highway.

Beth Pratt, a conservation leader with the National Wildlife Federation, feels as if she is running the last mile of a marathon. Pratt has spent most of the last decade planning the project, persuading transportation officials of its importance, and bringing together stakeholders and donors to fund it. "I'm a little dizzy still, but I feel relieved: we have the chance to give these mountain lions a shot at a future."

A rendering of the wildlife bridge crossing, which will feature native plants and vegetated walls. Photograph: AP

A groundbreaking ceremony to mark the start of construction for the $90m crossing - called the Wallis Annenberg wildlife crossing - will take place on Earth Day, 22 April. Construction will mostly happen at night and the project isn't expected to be complete until early 2025.

The bridge's price tag will be covered by about 60% private donations, with the rest coming from public funds set aside for conservation purposes. California's Governor Gavin Newsom has called the project an "inspiring example" of public-private partnership.

The project is breaking the mold in many ways: not only is it the largest crossing in the world, stretching over 10 lanes of one of the busiest roadways in the country, but it's also an engineering marvel. The crossing is designed to seamlessly integrate into the mountains, offering big cats, coyotes, deer, lizards, snakes and other creatures a safe way to travel to different parts of open territory in the Santa Monica mountains recreation area - a 150,000-acre space.

This is restoring a piece of lost habitat, putting it back across the mountains

Robert Rock, architect

Robert Rock, a landscape architect with Living Futures in Chicago who led the design, says this nature-centered type of construction makes it unusual among other wildlife bridges and underpasses around the world,which are typically made of cement and steel. This one is designed to seamlessly glide into the environment on both sides - and send a message to the people driving below.

His team includes a soil scientist - who collected samples nearby that are specific to the local trees - and a mycologist, who is studying the fungi of the area and how they can help the seamless flow of plants and animals across the overpass. Docents will be posted nearby to discourage people from exploring the overpass. (Pratt says that planting poison oak and posting signs about rattlesnakes are also effective tools to keep humans off the bridge.)

Some of the species that are expected to use the wildlife bridge. Photograph: Living Habitats and National Wildlife Federation

Rock says he is optimistic that the investment could serve as a precedent for how design can play a restorative role in the natural world. "As both a tool for and a symbol of connection, it will stand as an alluring challenge to future generations to pick up the mantle of design to bridge the gaps elsewhere in our world," he says.

Approximately 300,000 cars pass through this area each day, and Pratt calls it an opportunity for millions of Angelenos to see how humans can live more harmoniously with nature. "Someone could be in rush-hour traffic, and there could be a mountain lion right above them," she says. "I think that's such a hopeful image, and one that inspires me that we can right some of these great wrongs."

Pratt says the plight of the region's mountain lions caught the eye of donors from around the world. People sent money from London. A couple from Kansas who had visited the city only once donated $675,000. Leonardo DiCaprio's foundation chipped in $300,000. Pratt points to the local celebrity mountain lion P22, whose exploits around the city have captured headlines, as a catalyst for it all. "People really took his plight to heart, and this is not just a California story: the world has come together around his cause."

A remote camera captured a radio collared mountain lion in Griffith Park. Photograph: Steve Winter/National Geographic Creative

P22 won't actually be the intended user of this crossing, since he lives in a part of Los Angeles far east of the mountain range. But his symbol helped raise the money that will fund the bridge. And most of the area's mountain lions - scientists estimate there are currently between 10 and 12 - live in the area that the bridge will span.

The scientists say there is a learning curve for animals, and they will slowly begin to explore the bridge. For wary creatures, it may take up to five years to use the crossing successfully. Cats will follow smaller prey species, who generally more quickly adapt to the new territory.

"It's not just a solution for P22 to get across the road, as much as P22 is the face of the campaign," says Rock. "This is restoring a piece of lost habitat, putting it back across the mountains."

Wildlife crossings are picking up speed across the country, and the world. They make economic sense - most pay for themselves in a decade or two, and a study in Banff, Canada, whose national park has more than 40 wildlife underpasses and overpasses, found a 90% decrease in wildlife-vehicle collisions, which saved the park money.

The stretch of Highway 101 where groundbreaking is set to begin in April 2022. Photograph: John Antczak/AP

But it's only recently that the wildlife science and infrastructure communities have come together to understand the problem deeply. Joe Biden's $1.2tn infrastructure bill earmarked $350m for animal-friendly infrastructure like bridges, underpasses and roadside fences.

Pratt says the project struggled to raise money in the early days of planning. Luckily the team was able to find some people who recognized the importanceof this project.

But perhaps the bigger challenge was philosophical: naysayers told her the project shouldn't or couldn't be done - "that we shouldn't waste money on saving mountain lions in an urban area, that we would never be able to raise the funds." She was undeterred. "I wasn't going to take no for an answer, not when a population of mountain lions was at stake."

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Animal crossing: world's biggest wildlife bridge comes to California highway

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magine cruising down a 10-lane highway and knowing that, high above your head, a mountain lion is quietly going along its way. This remarkable image could soon be reality for drivers on one of California's busiest roads, as the world's largest wildlife overpass begins construction this month.

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Historically Redlined Communities Have Twice the Number of Oil and Gas Wells

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Historically Redlined Communities Have Twice the Number of Oil and Gas Wells

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Historically redlined neighborhoods have twice the number of oil and gas wells

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First-of-its-kind study proves connection between redlined neighborhoods and the locations of urban oil and gas wells.

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Rewilding Map Showcases Nature-Led Restoration

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Rewilding Map Showcases Nature-Led Restoration

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‘Nature has priority’: Rewilding map showcases nature-led restoration

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In the past decade, the European bison (Bison bonasus) has made a comeback in Central and Eastern Europe. Hunters had killed the last known bison in the region nearly a century ago. But thanks to reintroduction programs in Belarus, Poland, Russia and Romania, nearly four times as many bison are aliv…

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Also about general climate awareness, calling attention to environmental changes

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Marvin Gaye - Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) [playlist-friendly]

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What makes some wild life capable of flourishing even when under such directed efforts at undermining them? 

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What makes some wild life capable of flourishing even when under such directed efforts at undermining them? 

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A powerful poem about interconnectedness and interdependence.

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Please Call Me By My True Names - A Poem By Thich Nhat Hanh

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Do people experiencing homelessness perceive community green spaces differently than people living inside?

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Do people experiencing homelessness perceive community green spaces differently than people living inside?

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Condemned to green? Accessibility and attractiveness of urban green spaces to people experiencing homelessness

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The accessibility and attractiveness of urban green spaces (UGS) for individuals experiencing homelessness might be considered an example of the provi...

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Environmental Justice and Waste in the Denver Metro Area

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Environmental Justice and Waste in the Denver Metro Area

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CU Boulder study with maps on "race by area," "solid municipal waste sites," and "superfund sites."

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Skip to Content

The Environmental Justice Movement seeks to achieve equal distribution of the environmental benefits and burdens of economic growth. This movement began in the 1980's, when Robert Bullard did research regarding race and pollution. He found "race to be the single most important factor (i.e., more important than income, homeownership rate, and property values) in the location of abandoned toxic waste sites" and that "three of the five largest commercial hazardous waste landfills are located in predominately African American or Latino communities, and accounts for 40 percent of the nation's total estimated landfill capacity" (Bullard, 160).

These findings are the result of Redlining and Zoning.

Redlining is a discriminatory practice that has denied loans and services to BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and Persons of Color) communities for centuries. This has pushed BIPOC communities out of neighborhoods with stricter environmental regulations, allowing them to be exposed to toxic landfills that negatively affect their health.

Zoning laws more often than not "shortchange" communities of color by labeling their neighborhoods as "industrial" areas where there are fewer environmental regulations. This allows companies to place dangerous sites such as municipal landfills in close proximity to their homes (Bullard, 161).

This article explores race in relation to landfill and superfund site locations in the Denver-Metro area.

This map shows majority race by area in the Denver metro area, as self-identified on the US census.

Blue areas are predominantly white

Orange areas are predominantly hispanic

Green areas are predominantly Black

Red areas are predominantly Asian

Darker shades indicate a larger racial majority in that neighborhood.

This map shows the location of solid municipal waste sites

Indicated by the red dots

This map shows the location of superfund sites, indicated by the pink markings.

What can we see?

What are the Implications of Living Near a Landfill/Superfund Site?

Air Pollution

Water Pollution

Soil Pollution

Noise Pollution

There are many health costs to living in close proximity to landfills, including:

Cancer

Respiratory Illnesses

Cardio Vascular Illness

and many more (see photo)

By reducing your waste, you can help keep harmful pollutants out of these areas.

You can reduce your waste by refusing to use single-use plastics, composting food waste and paper products, re-using whenever you can, only buying what you need, and recycling correctly.

Make sure you're disposing of your waste properly by taking our America Recycles Day quiz!

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Environmental Justice and Waste in the Denver-Metro Area

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Skip to Content The Environmental Justice Movement seeks to achieve equal distribution of the environmental benefits and burdens of economic growth. This movement began in the 1980's, when Robert Bullard did research regarding race and pollution.

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At the Intersection of Social Justice and Environmental Justice 

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At the Intersection of Social Justice and Environmental Justice 

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On a sweltering summer day in the Globeville/Elyria-Swansea neighborhoods, shade can be hard to find. For residents of the area, the lack of trees is not just a matter of aesthetics-it deeply affects quality of life.

Tree canopy provides residents with more shade when a heatwave settles on the Front Range, but it also plays a key role in improving air quality and physical and mental health. Some blocks in Globeville/Elyria-Swansea have only 2% tree canopy. Across town, in other more affluent neighborhoods, such as Cherry Creek, residents enjoy up to 60%. It is no coincidence that some neighborhoods lack the green open spaces that mitigate heat and flooding. In fact, it is the result of a long history of government-instituted segregation. Learn more about the history of redlining in Denver's neighborhoods in Groundwork Denver's Climate Safe Neighborhoods report .

With project support from Groundwo rk Denver, residents in Globeville/Elyria-Swansea are working together to increase the tree canopy through planting initiatives. With every tree, on every block, in every neighborhood, Groundwork Denver and our neighbors are reminded that environmental justice and social justice go hand-in-hand.

"We define environmental justice through the equitable distribution of environmental benefits and environmental burdens or harms," says Groundwork Denver's executive director, Cindy Chang. "Communities of color, and poor communities in urban settings, have borne the brunt of environmental hazards in this country. On the flip side, they also have not received their fair share of environmental benefits, including open spaces, tree canopy, places to access food, and other things that we know are important to our health and wellbeing."

Building climate-safe neighborhoods is just one of many projects that Groundwork Denver is leading to address both environmental and social issues in Denver. What sets Groundwork Denver apart, says Cindy, is that every Groundwork Denver project and program area is driven by community voices.

"The communities in which we work say what is in their community and what is not," Cindy explains. "We know that who makes the decisions is just as important as the outcomes. We go into a neighborhood or community when we're asked to be there to support with resources to help them achieve their own goals."

As part of the tree planting initiative, residents of Elyria-Swansea and Globeville set a goal to plant 20,000 trees in their neighborhood. While the goal is ambitious, Groundwork Denver knows it is attainable through teamwork and commitment. These factors, says Cindy, are the drivers of social and environmental change.

"I always tell people that it's a long game for us," says Cindy. "The environment will always need to be improved in a lot of ways. We're not in it alone-we're coming behind generations of people who have fought for their communities and worked their whole lives for social and environmental justice. The least we can do is work as hard as them."
Groundwork Denver welcomes volunteers to join our work to support the health and wellbeing of our community while expanding their network and gaining new skills. Opportunities include planting trees, restoring habitats, collecting data, office work, and more. To get involved, visit our website

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At the Intersection of Social Justice and Environmental Justice

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On a sweltering summer day in the Globeville/Elyria-Swansea neighborhoods, shade can be hard to find. For residents of the area, the lack of trees is not just a matter of aesthetics-it deeply affects quality of life.

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Perhaps not a song about nature, but I have a specific core memory of listening to this song on repeat when I was deep amid the Ventana Wilderness. It had been a long day at the worksite, and then on a lunch break, I found shade underneath a small rock outcropping. I put in my earplugs, and this song came on.

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Laura Cortese & the Dance Cards // Dreaming // OFFICIAL VIDEO

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Anya Hinkle "Hills of Swannanoa" [Official Video]

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Backpacking and wilderness trips for the queer and transgender community

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Backpacking and wilderness trips for the queer and transgender community

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The Venture Out Project envisions a world where queer, trans, and LGBTQ+ youth and adults create community, develop leadership skills, and gain confidence through the shared experience of outdoor adventure and physical activity.

Mission

To provide education and support that helps schools and organizations affirm their LGBTQ+ community members.

To provide a safe and fun space for queer, trans, and LGBTQ+ people to experience the outdoors.

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Black Lives Matter.
The Venture Out Project stands in support and solidarity with the Black community and with Black Lives Matter movement.
All of us at The Venture Out Project acknowledge that the work towards Racial Justice and Equity is never finished.

We recognize and believe that this work must be ongoing and that we have so much yet to do. We understand that in order to make change, we must take action daily. We are committed to this work.

We lead backpacking and wilderness trips for the queer and transgender community.
We also conduct transgender inclusion workshops for educators, adventure professionals, summer camps and more!

Overnight Adventures for adults, youth & Families

FROM NOVICE TO ADVANCED
Whether you're a first timer, experienced adventurer, or somewhere in between, we have something for everyone. See what adventures await you at the link below!

Queer Day Hikes

COME SEE WHAT WE'RE ABOUT
TVOP Volunteers from Maine to Oregon lead Queer Day Hikes. Check out the link below to see if there are hikes in your area.

REI x The Venture Out Project

We've partnered with the great people at REI to keep you decked out in the latest and greatest outdoor recreational gear. Purchasing REI gear through the link below helps The Venture Out Project continue our mission of providing outdoor wilderness programming and recreation for LGBTQ+ youth and adults.

Shop REI by clicking the link and make a difference! It's that simple.

Our educational programs provide you with the knowledge, awareness, and skills to create trans-inclusive and affirming communities. We work with colleges (especially trip leaders), middle and high schools, camps, and other youth-serving organizations to increase their capacities to serve the trans community. Our workshops cover a range of topics from vocabulary, to creating trans-inclusive policies and forms, to navigating single-sex spaces, to what it means to be trans-inclusive and affirming in your daily interactions, and more.

2019

"This was the trip of a lifetime for me. I felt comfortable and at ease as a queer/bi/genderqueer in their late 40's. I never feel comfortable at "Gay & Lesbian" events/trips/gatherings. It felt like coming home."

-Arctic Adventure Participant

Learn more about the team behind The Venture Out Project and the amazing instructors, facilitators and experts who make this whole thing possible.

The Venture Out Project has something for everyone, whether you're new to the outdoors or a seasoned veteran of the outdoors or you're interested in education opportunities for your company or organization, we've got you covered.

SIGN UP FOR A TRIP
See what trips we offer and sign up to participate! We have something forever one and more.

CUSTOM TRIPS AND PROGRAMMING
Don't see what you're looking for? We offer custom tailored trips and educational programs to meet your needs.

MAKE A DONATION
We offer full paid scholarships to individuals and families who would otherwise not be able to participate due to financial restrictions. Help us fund them by contributing today.

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Black Lives Matter. The Venture Out Project stands in support and solidarity with the Black community and with Black Lives Matter movement. All of us at The Venture Out Project acknowledge that the work towards Racial Justice and Equity is never finished.