Photo via visitbigbend.com

An Oak Cliff charter school consults with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to design outdoor curriculum and adventurous class trips for its students.

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Faith Family Academy’s Explore 360 Adventure Learning is funded partly with a School Climate Transformation grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

The public enrollment charter school combines classroom learning with outdoor experiences at every grade level, pre-k through 12.

Faith Family 10th graders will travel to Big Bend National Park in November: “Students will spend 4 days developing outdoor living aptitudes while camping, hiking and canoeing against the backdrop of the Chisos Mountains.”

Seniors will travel in May to Snow Mountain Ranch in Granby, Colorado. And in between, students in lower grades will take trips to places like Fossil Rim Wildlife Center, Dinosaur Valley State Park and the Fort Worth Zoo.

The federal grant is for school that are “implementing an evidence-based multi-tiered behavioral framework for improving behavioral outcomes and learning conditions for all students.”

And the Explore 360 program is “focused on teaching safe and comfortable wilderness living while learning an appreciation of its beauty, a respect for nature’s interrelationships, and an understanding of the continued protection and preservation of the wilderness environment.”