ESC20 OL Leadership Summit 2026

Outdoor learning spaces have enormous potential, and a well-documented implementation problem. Too often, they're designed with enthusiasm and abandoned within a year. The culprit is usually not funding or facilities. It's the getting the question that drove their creation just right.This hands-on, two-hour workshop invites educators and school leaders to slow down and do the most important work first: developing a right-sized, community-rooted design question that will drive meaningful, sustainable outdoor learning.Grounded in EcoRise's work with K-12 teachers across Texas, EcoRise's Design Studio guides participants through the first and most critical phase of the design thinking process. Your school is invited to send a design team, where participants will examine real examples of outdoor learning spaces, identify the conditions that make them thrive or stall, and collaboratively develop and refine a design question tailored to their own school community.This is not a lecture. Participants will leave with a design question they've actually stress-tested, a clearer sense of the assets and constraints in their own context, and a framework for moving from question to implementation plan.The session is designed for administrators, instructional leaders, and teachers who are ready to move beyond inspiration and into action. No prior experience with design thinking is required, only a willingness to think carefully and work collaboratively.Outdoor learning works best when it's built around the real needs of real people and communities. This workshop is where that process begins.

We will explore and engage with various phenomena that can be encountered or brought outside, and tie these activities to grade-level TEKS from kindergarten through Biology. Participants will design an outdoor experience for students anchored in one of the phenomena and tailored to their grade level.