Our Mission

is to integrate environmental education and stewardship into our community by offering site-based learning, providing technical assistance to enhance ecosystem function, and partnering to cultivate ecological literacy. In doing this, we seek to enhance civility, pride, and the quality of instruction in today’s education system.  Camas’s School Restoration Program seeks to demonstrate integration of environmental education, landscape restoration, and urban infrastructure to lead sustainable development and enhance community. Specifically, with support from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, this program works with public and private schools in the upper Willamette Valley (inclusive of 7 school districts) to restore critical habitat for rare species and sustain ecosystem services associated with open spaces. Through caucuses, presentations, and workshops Camas shares this model with organizations working in the greater Willamette valley and throughout Oregon.

Since 1999, Camas has sought to cultivate an appreciation, sensitivity, and ownership for the unique attributes that make life in the Willamette Valley a special experience worthy to be conserved for generations to come. The organization was founded by Dr. Jim Ford, (then) superintendent of the Creswell School District, amongst others to facilitate field based approaches to learning also referred to as the Community Stewardship Program. Through the Community Stewardship Program Camas encourages youth to understand the impact of our lifestyle upon the landscape and empowers them to protect it.

The success of our program is attributable to collaboration with agencies, environmental organizations, and school districts alike. Since its inception, Camas has collaborated with educators in school districts throughout the southern Willamette valley to explore the practice of field based approaches to learning as it relates to natural resource stewardship. Camas is a member of the No Child Left Inside Coalition and the Environmental Educators Association of Oregon.