When Alma Bhandary-Narayanan and Tobiah Collins ran for senior class president at City High School, their campaign promise was rooted in something their classmates had missed years earlier: School of the Wild.
As sixth graders, many of the students in the Iowa City Community School District’s Class of 2026 were supposed to participate in the University of Iowa College of Education’s School of the Wild program. Then COVID-19 disrupted classrooms, field trips, traditions, and milestones — including the outdoor learning experience generations of Iowa City students had come to know and love.
Years later, Bhandary-Narayanan and Collins decided to do something about it.
“My co-president Tobiah Collins had the idea for us to campaign on bringing back some sixth-grade traditions that were lost to COVID, such as School of the Wild,” Bhandary-Narayanan says.
The two seniors helped lead an effort to bring their classmates back to Macbride Nature Recreation Area for a special School of the Wild experience designed just for high school seniors. City High School students attended on Tuesday, April 14; West High School students attended on Wednesday, April 15; and Liberty High School students attended on Thursday, April 16.
More than a field trip
For Bhandary-Narayanan, the effort was about giving her class a shared experience while also reconnecting students with the environment around them.
“School of the Wild is an awesome opportunity to spend some time outside, learn about the environment, and bond with classmates,” she says. “Tobiah and I wanted our class to get that experience — we didn’t want to let COVID take this away from us.”
She says local environmental education is especially important for young people because it helps them understand what they can do to protect their communities from climate change and habitat destruction.
For Karen Allen, director of UI WILD, the most meaningful part of the experience was that it began with the students themselves.
“That is the most fantastic part,” Allen says. “For the students to take ownership of their education and seek out solutions from missed experiences shows passion, perseverance, and maturity. Giving them the opportunity to engage with school leaders, university leaders, and the Iowa City Community School District Foundation was an incredible life lesson that resulted in fun and memorable experiences for all students.”
School of the Wild is a statewide initiative housed in the University of Iowa College of Education that provides immersive, place-based outdoor learning experiences for elementary and middle school students across Iowa. Through partnerships with schools, county conservation boards, and local conservation organizations, the program helps students build awareness and appreciation for the natural world while encouraging positive stewardship.
The path back to Macbride
This senior experience, however, required a different kind of planning.
Bhandary-Narayanan says she began coordinating over the summer with Jay Gorsh, School of the Wild director; Director Laura Ebinger from the ICCSD Foundation; and City High Principal John Bacon to make the idea possible. The group decided the week of ISASP testing would work well because seniors are excused from school during that time.
“After that, Directors from UI WILD and Ebinger and the City High administration handled most of the logistics, and I helped to communicate them to the senior class,” Bhandary-Narayanan says. “Everyone I connected with was enthusiastic about making our idea happen and very helpful.”
After students reached out through the School of the Wild website, Allen and the UI WILD team worked with the Iowa City Community School District Foundation, school administrators, and other partners to make the idea a reality.
"The students were able to learn about and understand the different decisions and logistics necessary to carry out a change in programming for seniors," Allen says. “There are just so many different stakeholders. I think that was also a great piece for them.”
A day built for seniors, inspired by sixth grade
For Gorsh, the senior programming was a chance to help students reclaim a meaningful experience that had been disrupted by the pandemic.
“It was wonderful to provide the opportunity for the students to enjoy some of the experiences they missed during COVID,” Gorsh says. “It was heart-warming to see how excited they were to be at School of the Wild.”
The programming also had to be adapted for students who were no longer sixth graders but still wanted the hands-on curiosity and exploration that make School of the Wild memorable.
Allen says the team worked to ensure the activities were scaffolded so older students could still have the same kind of engagement, wonder, and connection that younger students experience during the traditional program.
Gorsh says the one-day experience was designed to give seniors a memorable sampling of the program while allowing them to help shape their own day.
“For the one-day experience, we offered the best of the best of our School of the Wild experiences,” Gorsh says. “Students had some choice in which activities to participate in during their day of School of the Wild. It was great to see them channel their inner sixth grader. We hope the experience offers a little closure for the students.”
University of Iowa elementary education student teachers also helped shape the senior programming. Isabel Sherman, one of the student teachers placed with School of the Wild, says she and co-student teachers Isabelle Hughes and Libbie McKeag were asked to think about what they would have wanted to do at School of the Wild as high school seniors.
From there, the team helped organize activities that gave students choices while still preserving the core elements of School of the Wild. Each group had a bird-related experience, such as bird banding or visiting the Iowa Raptor Project, and students could also choose from activities such as archaeology, woodlands, upland pond, or Spider Pond.
Beyond the classroom walls
For Sherman, the experience also reinforced the power of outdoor education for future teachers. She says working with UI WILD has opened her perspective on what education can look like beyond the classroom walls.
“It’s been cool to be out here because it’s very STEM based and get to see that and see what the curriculum looks like,” Sherman says. “It’s a lot of fun. We get to really think on our feet. And then for me personally, it’s definitely opened up my perspective of outdoor education being an option that I pursue later on.”
For Liberty High School AP Environmental Science and Biology teacher Jenifer Secrist, watching high school students return to School of the Wild showed how meaningful outdoor learning can be at any age.
By high school, she says, students are often focused on schedules, homework, jobs, sports, technology, and what comes next. A day outside gives them permission to slow down.
“If you strip away the walls of a classroom and the phones and technology and just let them be, that all returns naturally,” Secrist says. “It is so amazing to watch.”
Secrist says the experience reminded her that high school seniors are still young people who benefit from curiosity, play, and time in nature.
“It makes me so happy to watch these kids be kids and not have to act like adults,” she says.
She also hopes the senior return to School of the Wild sparks future opportunities for older students to reconnect with outdoor learning.
“It’s meaningful when they’re young, but this is going to be even more meaningful at this stage in their life as they go out into the world,” Secrist says.
The calm that comes with being outside
For students, the day offered a chance to experience — or re-experience — something their classmates had talked about for years.
Saria Abdalla, a Liberty High School senior, had attended School of the Wild in the fall before COVID closures disrupted the school year, but she says returning as a senior gave her a new appreciation for the experience.
“It was so fun,” Abdalla says. “In the fall, I remember it was really cold. There was snow on the ground, and then I didn’t really enjoy it because I was too cold. But now I really, really got to enjoy it. I had a lot of fun this time.”
She says she was especially excited for classmates who had never had the chance to attend.
“School of the Wild, I remember I talked about it years after it happened,” Abdalla says. “Since they missed it, they didn’t get to experience that. But now I’m glad that they have this day, they can get a sort of feel of what we’re talking about when we mention School of the Wild.”
Bhandary-Narayanan says the return to Macbride Nature Recreation Area offered high schoolers something they rarely get during the school day: time together in a natural setting.
“High schoolers don’t get to spend as much time outside as younger students do, and we almost never spend class time in natural areas,” Bhandary-Narayanan says. “I noticed that everyone seemed calmer and more relaxed once we arrived at the Macbride Nature Recreation Area, and the group activities provided an opportunity for us to have fun while learning to collaborate physically and mentally.”
She says seeing people working to protect the local environment and educate others was encouraging, and she hopes some of her classmates were inspired toward environmental action.
“I know I was,” she says.
A lesson in ownership
For Allen, that sense of student advocacy is what made the week stand out. The seniors did more than ask for a missed field trip. They identified something meaningful, organized around it, built partnerships, and helped bring it back for their peers.
Allen says that kind of ownership reflects the very lessons students have gained throughout their years of education.
“Just the advocacy, the time, the kindness — all the things that obviously they have gathered in all of their years of education to make this happen,” Allen says.
And, for one week in April, the students who missed School of the Wild as sixth graders got to return — not as children making up a lost field trip, but as young leaders reclaiming an experience that still mattered.
