<DIV><p>Transform outdoor spaces into learning environments where children can enjoy a full range of activities as they spend quality time in nature. This book is filled with guidance to help you plan, design, and create an outdoor learning program that is a rich, thoughtfully equipped, natural extension of your indoor curriculum. Loaded with practical and creative ideas, it also includes information to help you understand how outdoor classrooms benefit children's learning and development; collaborate with other teachers, administrators, and families to make your outdoor classroom a reality; create development and action plans to strategize and implement changes; and evaluate your outdoor environment, programs, and practices. <I>Cultivating Outdoor Classrooms</I> promotes the idea that if you can do it indoors, you can probably do it outside as well.</p><p><B>Eric Nelson </B>is the founder and director of Child Care Planning Associates, the consulting and training division of the Child Educational Center, Caltech/JPL Community, which he established with his wife in 1979. Eric's consulting specialties include building and playground design and renovation, child care needs assessment and feasibility studies, development of employer-related child care, and staff training and development. Eric's understanding of the value of the outdoors is grounded in a lifetime of hiking his beloved Sierra Nevada Mountains in California since he was a young child.</p><BR></DIV>