All over Idaho, kids are learning about nature by actually being in nature.

From college wilderness programs to a year-round forest preschool, more and more Idaho students are spending time in an outdoor classroom and it turns out those experiences can have a lifetime of positive consequences.

Idaho Public Television’s Outdoor Idaho went into the wild to explore some of these amazing learning environments for their show Nature as Classroom, which airs March 10.

Bill Manny, producer with Idaho Public Television; Maura Goldstein, the school director of the Roots Forest School in McCall and Lora Strange, a master naturalist and the outdoor natural science teacher at Kuna High School, joined Idaho Matters to tell us more.