Bear Creek Explorers

Bear Creek Explorers is a weekly, year-long forest science and wilderness skills program for homeschool youth, offered by Wild Alive Outside in Eugene, Oregon. Designed as a multi-year journey, the program welcomes new students ages 9 to 11 and grows with them through age 13. It runs on a school-year schedule from fall through spring and takes place at Bear Creek Wilderness, a 47-acre family forest near Cheshire, Oregon. Students learn field science by doing it: they work with scientific instruments, collect data in permanent sample plots, and contribute to an ongoing ecological dataset documenting the forest over time. Alongside the science, students build practical wilderness skills such as fire starting, navigation, and knife skills.

Bear Creek Explorers is led by Jess Lambright, an outdoor educator with a background in applied science who also teaches ancestral crafts such as basketry, spoon carving, and natural cordage throughout the Eugene area. The program is designed to complement home education with sustained, hands-on outdoor learning in a small-group setting, where students return to the same forest week after week and observe as it changes across the seasons.