Wild Horse
Lab.

Ages 11+. The reading load on Week 4 (document analysis) is calibrated for middle-school-and-up. Students younger than 11 are better served by the Saguaro Field School cohort, which has a 6-year-old floor. Adaptive accommodations + DDD funding paths both live at /adaptive — a separate offering with different instructor-to-student ratios.

No, and we won't pretend otherwise. The wild horse herd is wild — the entire pedagogical premise is that students learn to observe at distance, with binoculars, the way real field biologists work. A 50-foot minimum approach (federal Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act + Tonto NF policy) is enforced. We position observation from the water because that's the herd's actual living room — they come to drink there. The students get a closer, longer look than ground-based tourists ever do, without disturbing the herd.

The Salt River herd is under active management debate. Federal + state agencies have proposed multiple downsizing actions in recent years; advocacy groups have proposed alternatives. We don't take a political position. We DO believe young Arizonans should understand what's happening in their own state — read the source documents, observe the actual herd, and form their own evidence-based view. Week 4 is built around exactly that work.

Both are 6-week single-day-per-week cohorts. Saguaro Field School is multidisciplinary — paddle skill + ecology + limnology + capstone. Wild Horses is single-focus — one species, one debate, one capstone defending one evidence-based claim. Students who finish Field School and want to go deeper on a specific watershed phenomenon often do Wild Horses or Water Science STEM next. Each is independently receipted for ESA.

Adaptive sessions are run as a separate offering — see /adaptive for the sensory-friendly track (1:1, 1:2, or 1:3 instructor-to-student ratio, visual schedules, regulation support). DDD-funded families (Cortica · Choice Care · Mentor AZ) route through the same page — the HCBS H2014 detail lives at /adaptive#ddd. Both tracks run on a separate calendar so the cohort experience is right-sized for the student.

We provide the board, paddle, PFD, leash, binoculars (10×42 loaner), waterproof field journal, all ID cards + worksheets, the certificate, and citizen-science portal submission. The student brings: sun protection (hat + sunscreen), water bottle, closed-toe water shoes, a snack, and an open notebook mind.