…Thanks to a $25,000 grant from the National Park Service (NPS), 10 students enrolled in our Education Without Walls program will participate in a 21-day summer 2017 backcountry adventure in southeast Alaska. The funding for the trip, which is designated as an NPS Challenge Cost Share Program Grant, covers nearly all the costs associated with…

…Meg Young joined the staff team here at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education late last year as office manager and was swiftly promoted to director of admissions. She works closely with our students to ensure their registration and enrollment process goes as smoothly as possible — something she believes sets them up…

…Trauma-informed practices accounts for physical and emotional safety, trust and transparency, healthy peer-to-peer interaction, and a respect for diversity….

NCOAE offers select high school credits through Blueprint Education, an accredited distance learning school for grades 8 through 12….

…When the busy season for summer-based outdoor education programming winds down, many in the outdoor education community may have found themselves returning to other avocations and means to make a living. For those of us who remain in the field of education — albeit in a more traditional setting — we continue what we know to…

…Explore a variety of videos from actual NCOAE field experiences, from EMT training to adventures that take place in the backcountry….

…If you’re a regular reader of our blog, you may recall that Education Without Walls (EWOW) began more than a decade ago here at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE). Today, EWOW has become a successful organization — a self-sustaining not-for-profit complete with its own administrative staff, board of directors, programs, and…

Read this Privacy Policy for important information on how and why we collect, store, use, and share your personal information….

…A few weeks ago, we published Part 1 of this series, which covers what we here at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE) view as the trending best practices to know about in outdoor and adventure-based experiential education.  Here, in Part 2 of this series, we introduce you to Restorative Practices, and…

Here at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE) we’re not very big on endorsing products or brands. In fact, if you were to research our blog all the way back to the first entry at the end of 2013, you probably won’t find more than two or three posts chatting up products…

…If you follow us on Facebook, you may have read about a Community Outreach grant we recently received from the Vertex Railcar Corporation — a startup that’s focused on building the next generation of safe rail tank cars. Vertex and The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education’s (NCOAE) are neighbors here in Wilmington, N.C….

…Tina Currin, an avid hiker and outdoor enthusiast, recently completed NCOAE‘s W-EMT course. Learn more about how her journey led her to us!…

…At first glance, our website might lead the casual observer to surmise that our organization, The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE), is just another run-of-the-mill for-profit business. The kind of outfit where the owners get rich by running adventure-based trips for children from well-to-do families to exotic destinations around the globe. Truth…

…Professional development — learning that allows you to earn or maintain professional credentials — is key to career planning, especially when it comes to considering a career in the outdoor adventure and education industry. Much more than participating in a bunch of classes, our sector of the outdoor industry looks favorably on applicants with wilderness…

“Phone’s ringing, Dude” — The Big Lebowski The phone’s also ringing here at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE), and a good number of times the caller is representing a public, independent or charter school that is seeking help with their fledgling outdoor education and wilderness-based adventure programs. These educational institutions either…

It’s official. We’ve symbolically planted a National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE) flag in the ground and established a basecamp for our South American operations in Southern Chile/Northern Patagonia. What does that mean to you? It means that — as of the final days of last year — we officially have a base…

…Strange and interesting things are afoot in the human-powered outdoor recreation community, and if you’ve been paying attention to issues surrounding the use of wilderness areas lately, what follows here might not come as a surprise. What has emerged is a growing division among outdoor enthusiasts as to whether or not mountain bikes should be…

…If you’re thinking about enrolling in a Teen Adventure Course and you’re wondering how to prepare, then this blog post is for you! It’s a daily occurrence here at The National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE). Someone calls or writes to ask how should they prepare for one of our courses. And while…

…If you look atop our website, you’ll see a unique diamond-shaped icon to the left of our organization’s name, and that new brand mark is, well, brand new to us. The name “brand mark,” by the way, is just another fancy way to say “logo,” and we’re really happy to tell you how we came…

We have a formula here at the National Center for Outdoor & Adventure Education (NCOAE) and it reads like this: Self + Community + Action = Impact. In fact, self is the backbone of what we do at NCOAE. It involves our esteem, self-actualization and the decisions we choose to make — all of which…