Our Mission
Connection with nature brings contentment and tranquility, but opportunities are limited in our fast-paced digital world. However, when young people get outside they grow roots that allow them to access a well of resilience within themselves. Pushing through hard things: like working for weeks to master a new skill and failing, spending hours collecting data and then realizing an error in methodology, or spending an entire day outside in the cold rain- can actually lead to a new appreciation for what is possible and allow one to access deeper levels of calm and gratitude.
Spending time outdoors, with other humans, provides profound opportunities for relationship building, shared experience, and social development. Using teamwork to solve a skills challenge, working in partnership to present research findings, or finally getting a fire started on a snowy day, enhance connection among youth in a visceral heart-opening way that is hard to replicate inside or through online communication. We aim to provide enriching experiences through a variety of activities, with nature connection at the center.
What do we do Outside?
WILD
Scientific Inquiry
As we wander, we take time to investigate what we find. Is that an owl pellet, or did it come from a hawk? Do the feathers we found nearby come from the same bird? Perhaps we’ll bring guidebooks along in our backpacks and form a circle around a new, mysterious mushroom. Can we make a guess about the species by using the field guides and looking closely at evidence? How do different ecologies support a range of animals, plants and insects?
Nature Awareness
Together we will learn about the wildness around us. When we use all our senses and take time to notice details a whole new world opens up for us.
Research Science
Wild Alive offers opportunities to contribute to the body of scientific knowledge through citizen science initiatives. The Bear Creek Wilderness is a research forest with the goal of understanding who lives in the forest and meadow, how we can enhance habitat, diversity, and track changes over time. Ask a research question, establish a forest plot, set up a trail camera, count macroinvertebrates, record rainfall from the rain gauge or measure the carbon dioxide emitted from the soil as an indicator of microbe activity.
ALIVE
Be Present
One of the best ways to fully be alive is to take a few moments to stop doing anything and just BE. Alone time in nature can shift consciousness in a way that opens us up to being fully present with nature, ourselves, and other humans. It is also grounding, calming, and revitalizing to be in a space of shared experience. Sometimes that shared experience is just watching a spider build a web, fully caught in the drama of the next spiral, and sometimes it is an intricate game that a group of kids will joyfully co-create once they’ve spent several hours in nature and their work is done.
Explore
Sometimes we are eager to see new sites and summit mountains. In this way of being, we move more quickly, following trails, seeking vistas and discovering places we’ve never seen before. Exploration days are good opportunities to use a map and compass and try not to get lost along the way. When climbing a mountain, we may notice some interesting wildflowers or scat, but because we have a goal and destination, we may not linger long enough to fully identify every species and solve every mystery.
Connect
Through all our activities, we are building relationships with each other and the land. With this comes all the benefits of building relationships: Friendship. Communication. Respect. Active Listening. Practicing boundaries. Conflict resolution.
OUTSIDE
Track and Forage
Moving slowly through the wilderness, we use all our senses. We’re looking for clues and signs to find the next paw print or mushroom. We gather mindfully and track stealthily, taking only what is needed and abundant, careful not to disturb the balance of the ecosystem. Whether it’s huckleberries, obsidian, deer tracks, chanterelles, or fatwood, the ability to tune our senses to find something particular in the wild is embedded deeply into our DNA. Discovery is like finding treasure!
Craft and Get Cozy
For much of our history the land has provided all we needed to survive. Plant fibers, wood, clay, feathers, dyes, bones, stones and animal hides provide the materials to work with our hands. When we create something in relationship with the land around us that tool or artistic creation is different than something we purchased. It contains part of us, and part of nature, and represents what we can do together.
On a cold, rainy day we can carve a spoon by the warm fire while we boil water to make survival soup. Creating a home away from home by building a camp allows us to connect deeply with that place and notice changes with the seasons and over time.
Manage and Restore
Trails overgrow and invasive weeds spread, so sometimes we pull out our work groves and long-handled loppers and get to work! There is a deep satisfaction that comes from clearing a dense patch of invasive Himalayan Blackberries in the fall and then watching rare, native wildflowers emerge from that piece of earth in the spring. To access the forest, it’s handy to clear and maintain a trail or two. And if you build it, the bobcats, deer, and coyotes will use it too!
Meet the Founder
Jess Lambright has been exploring the natural world since her parents moved to a house with a forest behind it, when she was five years old. Raised by a science professor and an artist, both brilliant teachers, she grew up with freedom to explore and support for her many creative endeavors. After studying physics and optics and earning an applied master’s degree at the University of Oregon, she worked as an optical engineer before finding greater fulfillment and challenge raising and homeschooling her two children. Since 2015 she has been managing a 47-acre woodland for wildlife and native plant communities and has completed the Master Woodland Management program as well as taken several graduate courses through the OSU College of Forestry to gain skills, knowledge and strategies for that endeavor.
In 2019 Jess started a nature school for homeschool families where once per week kids and parents spend all day outside learning wilderness skills, exploring, developing naturalist knowledge, conducting field studies, and connecting with nature, themselves, and each other. She founded Wild Alive Outside in the summer of 2023 with the goal of getting more youth outdoors to discover wonder and inspiration in the natural world through science, outdoor skills, and wilderness connection.
In her spare time Jess enjoys climbing mountains, learning about native plants, weaving with natural materials, attending teacher workshops and skill share gatherings, diverting food waste to help feed the hungry, assisting with restoration projects, woodworking, backpacking, and spending time with friends and family.
