Trumble-Pitel, 6th Grade Math/Science Teacher, October 7, 2025
PLACERVILLE — Sixth-graders from Pleasant Valley Middle School in the Gold Oak Union School District spent four days — Sept. 23–26 — at the Sly Park Environmental Education Center, a residential outdoor school operated by the Sacramento County Office of Education.
Organized into cabins and small learning groups, students took part in guided hikes, hands-on science investigations and evening activities led by credentialed Sly Park instructors, with support from GOUSD teachers and parent chaperones. The center’s program model intentionally pairs outdoor fieldwork with classroom standards to deepen understanding and build social-emotional skills.
“It was wonderful to have local students get an opportunity to learn and explore their back yard,” “I had one student fearful about her big hike to the creek. I convinced her to go and push through her fears. Seeing her smile when she made it back to campus, happy she went and got to explore the creek.”
said Ginger Schlavin, a Sly Park Environmental Education Center teacher.
The camp’s return comes amid ongoing state-level efforts to align California classrooms with the Next Generation Science Standards, which the State Board of Education adopted in 2013. California’s most recent statewide assessment results show modest gains in science, with 30.7 percent of students meeting or exceeding standards in 2023–24 — a statistic state leaders say underscores the need for diverse instructional strategies, including place-based and experiential learning.
“I commend California’s students and educators for their hard work and continued growth in academic achievement across the state,”
State Superintendent Tony Thurmond said in the department’s release on the 2023–24 results.
Research has long shown parental education levels and family resources strongly correlate with student academic outcomes, a reminder that schools and community partners must work deliberately to expand access to high-quality science experiences for all students. Outdoor programs like Sly Park aim to narrow those opportunity gaps by giving students hands-on practice with scientific inquiry in a low-stakes, supportive setting.
At Sly Park, students stayed in heated cabins, ate meals together, and rotated through stations that introduced ecology, geology, astronomy and engineering concepts through active lab work and field observation. Highlights reported by teachers and chaperones included night hikes (students experience the forest at night using senses other than sight), creek investigations, and physics demonstrations such as tug-of-war activities that make abstract concepts tangible.
District officials say partnerships with regional outdoor education providers strengthen classroom learning and build community memory for students who live in the foothills and mountain communities of El Dorado County. Sly Park — founded as a partnership between the U.S. Forest Service and SCOE and serving thousands of fifth- and sixth-grade students each year — markets itself as an “extension of the classroom” that supports academic and social development.
For more information about Gold Oak Union School District programs and calendars, visit the district website.
