Headwaters Learning is a multi-disciplinary, extracurricular, environmental education center for students of all ages on the headwaters of the Etowah river, seven miles west of Dahlonega, GA. Through hands-on activities in the gardens, trails, river, woodshop, and in a kitchen/classroom/pavilion for up to 40 participants, students learn to make methodical observations in the garden and in the wild, conduct experiments, and propose solutions to problems and revisions in a thinking process of continuous improvement. Thinking processes should transfer to the students' home environments too, so that everywhere becomes a headwaters for learning.

Gardening for Ideas

Gardening is never a perfect formula due to unpredictable variables like weather, insects, and diseases, so there are always opportunities for unique observations, research and ideas for improving methods. In the pavilion, students share observations, discuss challenges, and collect new data and past research (using apps like Globe Observer and iNaturalist), and conduct experiments. Daily weather and garden observations and responses are a simple, yet long-term way of thinking that forms a kind of a thinking-flow template the students' home learning environments as well. More on the thinking-flow here.

Woodworking, cooking, Japanese language and culture, nature walks, trail-building, birding, fishing, canoeing, and reading discussions in history and literature offer more ways to strengthen independent thinking processes.