Our customized field trips and educational tours
provide doorways to discover ourselves
and our place in the world.
As we connect our own identities and experiences with the stories from the world around us,
we learn how we fit into the web of life,
and what impact we would like to have on it.
Our field trips and tours provide the context for unifying experiences to occur
within individuals and between people of different backgrounds.
provide doorways to discover ourselves
and our place in the world.
As we connect our own identities and experiences with the stories from the world around us,
we learn how we fit into the web of life,
and what impact we would like to have on it.
Our field trips and tours provide the context for unifying experiences to occur
within individuals and between people of different backgrounds.
We co-design field trips and educational tours that give groups a chance to discover answers to questions that impact their lives, that they may be wondering about, or that they may be learning about in school or at home. To answer a question like, "Why is Baltimore so segregated?" We offer a housing history and redlining tour that allows participants to trace the history, outdoors, experientially. To answer a question such as, "Where does my water come from?", we could go canoeing at Middle Branch Park or hiking along one of our city's three reservoirs, explore the Gunpowder Falls or Patapsco rivers, their tributaries, treatment plants, pipes, and institutions that provide our access to drinking water.
Inward Discovery Grows Outdoors is in-part a response to the tension around the issue of attention. In her article in "Frontiers in Human Neuroscience," Dr. Catherine L'Ecuyer attempts to reconnect teachers to their natural role within a child's life and help all adults dispel the tension around getting kids to pay attention. "According to the Wonder Approach, the teacher is a facilitator in the process of connecting the mind, the will, and the heart of the child with what is true, good and beautiful, so that when he becomes a teenager or adult, he will eventually be able to identify and discover them "by themselves."[*] At InDiGO, we understand that realization unfolds with guidance and life-changing experience. Life-changing experiences that awaken our innate nature occur most readily outdoors in nature. However, as our name represents, Inward Discovery Grows Outdoors, our focus is on growth within.
As we build a culture that has re-membered (with) Nature, how we care for our environment is inextricably tied to how we communicate about it. At InDiGO, we develop the tools to express our natural selves as we unearth more of ourselves. We also apply those tools to our communities, cultures, and the nature surrounding us. As Donald Carbaugh reminds us, "Communication is the basic social process through which our natural ways and cultural meanings are being exercised socially." Whether through multi-media, art, poetry, music, journalism, dance, we empower youth and adults to tell their own stories about their place in the world.
Baltimore City recently changed the name of Robert E. Lee Park to Lake Roland Park. The renaming was a significant statement to the Black residents of Baltimore City that they are indeed welcome. Carbaugh continues, "As communication continuously and naturally re-creates places, it creatively integrates natural and cultural messages."[*] The park is in a historically white neighborhood; Baltimore is over 62%, Black. The city recently removed most confederate monuments from public parks, but their empty pedestals remain as powerful conversation-starters on our educational tours. Customized field trips are platforms to discover ourselves and our place in the world as we encounter others as whole people with narratives, histories, and experiences we can all learn through. Our field trips and tours provide a context for UNIFYING experiences to occur within individuals and between people of different backgrounds.
We guide youth and adults to access and develop their relationship to their place in the world by shining a light on the complex history of the land they stand on. One discovery naturally leads to another, creating UNIFYING experiences. Continuing to build on these natural connections within is what cultivates the inner power to learn, teach, heal, and unite in healthy relationships with ourselves, each other, and the Earth.
Inward Discovery Grows Outdoors is in-part a response to the tension around the issue of attention. In her article in "Frontiers in Human Neuroscience," Dr. Catherine L'Ecuyer attempts to reconnect teachers to their natural role within a child's life and help all adults dispel the tension around getting kids to pay attention. "According to the Wonder Approach, the teacher is a facilitator in the process of connecting the mind, the will, and the heart of the child with what is true, good and beautiful, so that when he becomes a teenager or adult, he will eventually be able to identify and discover them "by themselves."[*] At InDiGO, we understand that realization unfolds with guidance and life-changing experience. Life-changing experiences that awaken our innate nature occur most readily outdoors in nature. However, as our name represents, Inward Discovery Grows Outdoors, our focus is on growth within.
As we build a culture that has re-membered (with) Nature, how we care for our environment is inextricably tied to how we communicate about it. At InDiGO, we develop the tools to express our natural selves as we unearth more of ourselves. We also apply those tools to our communities, cultures, and the nature surrounding us. As Donald Carbaugh reminds us, "Communication is the basic social process through which our natural ways and cultural meanings are being exercised socially." Whether through multi-media, art, poetry, music, journalism, dance, we empower youth and adults to tell their own stories about their place in the world.
Baltimore City recently changed the name of Robert E. Lee Park to Lake Roland Park. The renaming was a significant statement to the Black residents of Baltimore City that they are indeed welcome. Carbaugh continues, "As communication continuously and naturally re-creates places, it creatively integrates natural and cultural messages."[*] The park is in a historically white neighborhood; Baltimore is over 62%, Black. The city recently removed most confederate monuments from public parks, but their empty pedestals remain as powerful conversation-starters on our educational tours. Customized field trips are platforms to discover ourselves and our place in the world as we encounter others as whole people with narratives, histories, and experiences we can all learn through. Our field trips and tours provide a context for UNIFYING experiences to occur within individuals and between people of different backgrounds.
We guide youth and adults to access and develop their relationship to their place in the world by shining a light on the complex history of the land they stand on. One discovery naturally leads to another, creating UNIFYING experiences. Continuing to build on these natural connections within is what cultivates the inner power to learn, teach, heal, and unite in healthy relationships with ourselves, each other, and the Earth.