CTS Outdoor Education Center

objectives and functions

The Outdoor Education Center has a variety of functions, including: an outdoor classroom, an animal track wall, a hands-on wildlife collection, a variety of nature books, and a constellation ceiling. The space is not only to bring campers and guests closer to creation, but also will be the ‘heart’ of camp; all main trailheads starting and/or ending at the center. The center sits not far off the road for easy access and ADA accessible.

The primary inspiration for the design of the Outdoor Education Center will always be the celebration of our natural world. For that reason, all spaces focus the attention of our campers and guests outward into the forest and beyond. The education center can function then, like a lens, focusing our thoughts on the ways we can better understand the world around us.

A critical part of understanding the education center’s role in our Flint Hills context is learning how to best care for the environment. The Outdoor Education Center focuses on one half of our Kansas ecology (Environmental Education & Animal Education), and how we can preserve them.

For so many people, the outdoors can be a foreign place, unfriendly to those of us who aren’t as mobile or able-bodied. We passionately believe that our natural world should be made available to all, and that the Outdoor Education Center is the perfect place to build Camp Tomah Shinga’s first fully and comfortably accessible site. Inspiring minds, young and old, with the wonder of our planet means providing a variety of different learning methods for all people to experience Creation in a new way.