Workshops | Earthbound Academy

In-Person Educational Workshops

Hands-on learning inspired by the land, culture, and communities.

Earthbound Academy offers experiential mini-courses designed for homeschool learners, worldschoolers and students seeking alternative, meaningful enrichment activities.

Each 90-minute workshop combines guided instruction, hands-on activities, discussion, and a student project or reflection that demonstrates learning.

Our interdisciplinary programs connect science, environmental studies, history, health, visual arts, language arts, leadership, and practical life skills to the natural and cultural resources of Puerto Rico.

Workshops can be adapted for different ages and grade levels.

While subjects remain the same, expectations and levels differ based on grade level:

Grades 4–5: introductory
Grades 6–8: intermediate
Grades 9–12: advanced

For example:

Ecosystems & Biodiversity

Grades 4–5: Identify organisms and habitat relationships.

Grades 6–8: Analyze food webs and collect biodiversity data.

Grades 9–12: Analyze field observations, human impacts and conservation strategies.

Earthbound Academy Curriculum Framework
These publicly available course descriptions support Earthbound Academy's structured, in-person homeschool and enrichment programs. Families may select modules individually or combine them into a sequential course of study based on the student's learning goals.

Workshops Offerings

Leadership, Communication & Community Action

Students explore what it means to be an effective leader and responsible community member. Through team challenges, problem-solving, communication activities, and service-learning scenarios, students practice making decisions, working collaboratively, and developing solutions to real-world community and environmental challenges.

Students will:
Identify characteristics of effective leadership.
Practice communication, teamwork, and active listening.
Apply problem-solving and decision-making strategies.
Examine how individual and group actions affect communities.
Develop and communicate a solution to a community or environmental challenge.

Learning Product: Leadership reflection, team challenge, or community action proposal.

Academic Connections: Social Studies • Civics • Language Arts • Life Skills

Social Studies • Civics • Language Arts

Healthy Living: Nutrition, Movement & Nature

Students investigate how nutrition, physical activity, outdoor recreation, rest, and healthy routines contribute to overall well-being. Activities connect health education with gardening, food systems, movement, and time spent outdoors.

Students will:
Identify components of a healthy lifestyle.
Explain how physical activity supports health and wellness.
Explore connections between food systems, nutrition, and health.
Participate in age-appropriate outdoor activities.
Identify healthy strategies for rest, focus, and managing everyday stress.
Create personal goals for healthy daily habits.

Learning Product: Personal Healthy Habits Plan.

Academic Connections: Health • Physical Education • Life Science • Nutrition

Health • Phys Ed • Nutrition

Botany, Native Plants & Ethnobotany

Students become young botanists as they investigate native and culturally significant plants of Puerto Rico. Through observation, identification, sketching, and research, students explore plant structures, habitats, biodiversity, ecological roles, and the ways plants have been used by different communities throughout history.
Traditional plant uses are explored through the lenses of history, culture, ethnobotany, and scientific inquiry.

Students will:
Identify at least five native or culturally significant Puerto Rican plants.
Observe and compare plant structures and characteristics.
Explain how selected plants contribute to local ecosystems.
Research historical and cultural uses of plants.
Distinguish between traditional knowledge and evidence developed through scientific study.
Document observations using scientific notes, labels, and illustrations.

Learning Product: Puerto Rican Plant & Ethnobotany Journal.

Academic Connections: Biology • Botany • Environmental Science • History • Scientific Illustration

Biology • Botany • History

Nature, Mindfulness & Healthy Habits

Students explore how outdoor environments can support movement, attention, observation, reflection, and healthy daily routines. Through guided nature activities, students practice breathing, sensory observation, mindful movement, journaling, and other age-appropriate self-awareness activities.
This course is designed as health and wellness education and focuses on practical skills students can incorporate into everyday routines.

Students will:
Identify healthy strategies for responding to everyday stress.
Practice breathing, movement, observation, and sensory-awareness activities.
Examine how outdoor environments encourage movement and focused observation.
Use nature journaling to develop reflection and self-awareness skills.
Identify healthy routines that support rest, focus, physical activity, and overall wellness.

Learning Product: Nature & Healthy Habits Journal or Personal Wellness Routine.

Academic Connections: Health • Physical Education • Environmental Education • Life Skills

Health • Phys Ed • Life Skills

Garden Science & Food Systems

The garden becomes a living laboratory as students investigate how food grows and travels from soil to table. Students participate in planting, observation, garden maintenance, harvesting, and food-system activities while exploring plant biology and sustainable agriculture.

Students will:
Identify the basic needs and structures of plants.
Explain stages of plant growth.
Investigate how soil, water, sunlight, nutrients, and climate affect crops.
Practice age-appropriate planting and garden-maintenance techniques.
Describe how food moves through a food-production system.
Explore sustainable gardening practices.
Harvest or prepare a simple garden-based food when appropriate.

Learning Product: Garden observation journal, plant-growth record, or soil-to-table diagram.

Academic Connections: Life Science • Agriculture • Environmental Science • Nutrition

Life Science • Agriculture • Science

Eco-Art & Scientific Nature Journaling

Art meets science as students slow down, observe the natural world, and document what they discover. Students examine plants, animals, landscapes, patterns, textures, and natural forms using both artistic and scientific observation.

Students will:
Make detailed observations of natural objects and environments.
Use line, shape, texture, pattern, proportion, and color to represent observations.
Create observational sketches from natural subjects.
Label important structures or environmental features.
Record observations using descriptive and scientific language.
Compare artistic observation with scientific observation.

Learning Product: Eco-Art & Nature Journal featuring sketches, labels, field notes, and reflections.

Academic Connections: Visual Arts • Life Science • Language Arts • Environmental Science

Visual Arts • Life Science

Taíno History, Culture & Ecological Knowledge

Students explore Taíno history and culture while investigating relationships among people, land, agriculture, food, technology, and natural resources. Maps, artifacts, stories, environmental observations, and hands-on activities help students connect Puerto Rico's history with its environment.

Students will:
Identify important aspects of Taíno history and culture.
Locate Puerto Rico and areas of Taíno influence on a map.
Explore Taíno agriculture, foods, tools, housing, and community practices.
Examine examples of traditional ecological knowledge.
Explain how natural resources influenced daily life.
Explore how history is preserved through archaeology, artifacts, oral traditions, and written sources.

Learning Product: Cultural reflection project, illustrated timeline, map, presentation, or artifact study.

Academic Connections: Puerto Rican History • Caribbean History • Geography • Social Studies • Environmental Studies

PR History • Caribbean History

Environmental Science & Stewardship

Students become environmental problem-solvers as they investigate a local environmental issue and consider practical solutions. Topics may include biodiversity, habitat protection, water, waste, coastal ecosystems, sustainable agriculture, pollution, conservation, or responsible use of natural resources.

Students will:
Identify and investigate a local environmental issue.
Gather observations or information related to the issue.
Explain possible causes and effects.
Evaluate possible solutions.
Explore individual and community responsibilities for protecting natural resources.
Design and communicate an age-appropriate stewardship solution.

Learning Product: Environmental action plan, poster, presentation, field report, or stewardship project.

Academic Connections: Environmental Science • Earth Science • Biology • Civics • STEM

Env Science • STEM • Civics

Eco-Field Experiences
Puerto Rico as the Classroom

Earthbound Academy's Eco-Field Experiences transform Puerto Rico's natural, agricultural, historical, and cultural resources into immersive learning environments.
Rather than traditional field trips, these experiences are structured as field-based mini-courses combining guided instruction, observation, inquiry, discussion, and hands-on learning.
Potential Learning Sites
Farms and agroecology projects
Beaches and coastal ecosystems
Mangrove ecosystems
Rivers and watersheds
Forests and biodiversity areas
Community gardens
Sustainability and renewable-energy sites
Conservation areas
Historical and cultural sites

Students May:
Apply science, history, geography, and environmental concepts in real-world settings.
Conduct structured observations and collect field information.
Identify characteristics of Puerto Rico's ecosystems.
Investigate relationships among organisms, habitats, natural resources, and human activity.
Ask questions and draw conclusions from observations.
Explore conservation and sustainability practices.
Practice teamwork and responsible field-study behaviors.
Connect academic concepts to Puerto Rican environments, history, agriculture, and communities.

Learning Product: Eco-Field Journal, observation sheet, field sketch, map, data collection activity, reflection, or post-experience project.

Science • Geography • History

What is a Mini-Course?

Every Earthbound Academy workshop is designed as a structured educational experience. A typical 90-minute mini-course follows a cycle of Explore, Investigate, Apply, and Reflect.