Legislation leaves out program to expand outdoor education for MN youth

PALISADE — A grant program intended to expand access to overnight outdoor experiences to all Minnesota schoolchildren did not gain the necessary legislative support this year to get off the ground.

Legislation known as "Outdoor School For All" was not included in the final environmental omnibus bill approved by the Minnesota Legislature in the 2024 session. The bill would have set aside funding to give every student the opportunity to attend an accredited overnight outdoor school.

There are five such schools the state, including three in Northern Minnesota: Long Lake Conservation Center in Palisade, Deep Portage Learning Center in Hackensack and Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center in Finland. Currently, the centers reach an average of 30% or less of all Minnesota children, according to the advocacy group Outdoor School for All Minnesota.

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Long Lake Conservation Center

Dave McMillan, manager of Long Lake, has advocated for the funding since last spring. He said access to the outdoors shouldn't be limited by a student's ZIP code or socioeconomic status.

"The average middle school kid in the state of Minnesota spends 10 hours per day on screen time and less than 10 minutes a day outdoors," McMillan said in an earlier interview. "That's just not a good recipe for the future. Kids really need to connect with the outdoors as part of this Minnesota outdoor ethic. The more people connect to the outdoors, the better."

After the session's conclusion, McMillan said it stung a bit to not see these experiences opened to more young people in the state. But he noted the bill was among a lot of legislation that did not make it across the finish line this supplemental budget year, despite bipartisan support.

"They made decisions and they decided, and I don’t feel necessarily bad about it," he said in a May 23 phone interview. "Because ultimately they supported — they took the money from our bill ... and moved it over to some water quality initiatives, to make sure that our waters and rivers and lakes are clean. So it’s hard to be upset about that."

McMillan said he and others will continue to lobby for the program in Minnesota to help kids connect with nature, and he is cautiously optimistic the initiative will gain support to move forward in the future.

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Although not including funding for the program, the final environmental omnibus bill included a requirement for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources to study gaps in existing programs to increase outdoors opportunities for kids. The report "must include recommendations for program and policy changes to increase opportunities to serve additional Minnesota youth through Outdoor Schools for All legislation."

"A lot of legislators felt bad that we were on the chopping block and that we ended up getting cut," McMillan said. "And so we have a little bit of maybe sympathy looking ahead to next session."

That being said, McMillan said the often-contentious environment at the Minnesota State Capitol means it's difficult to be too confident in any particular outcome. Calling politics a "strange ecosystem," he agreed it's much different than the ecosystems he's used to studying.

"Absolutely. Give me a classroom full of kids and a bog or a forest, and life is great, you know?"

The DNR’s report is due to the Legislature by March 2025.