Outdoor adventurers and advocates Amy and Dave Freeman met with students and teachers from every division during their visit as this year’s Philip Otis Environmental Authors. And regardless of age, the message they hoped would most resonate: enjoy nature. “Fom time to time, unplug and spend intentional time out in nature for the sake of grounding yourself,” Amy says, “[and also] feeling that connection to the bigger world and wanting to keep it healthy.”

In the Lower School, Amy and Dave, who have traveled through some of the world’s wildest places, from the Amazon to the Arctic, engaged Blake’s youngest students through animals. Students became sloths and stacked themselves head to toe to demonstrate how long a python can be. At the Upper School assembly, Amy and Dave talked about the year they spent exploring the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. They also visited classrooms and had lunch with several Upper School students. “I was really impressed by the older students,” Dave says. “They seemed to be very grounded in their place in the larger world and in the importance of conservation and thinking about larger things.” 

While they’ve spoken at hundreds of school assemblies and connected online with classroom from the wilderness in various parts of the world, Dave says their visit to Blake was special: “We haven’t had very many opportunities to leave school and go outside like we did with the third graders, going out to the forest and seeing what they could hear and see and smell and sense. I really enjoyed watching them shift from the classroom to the outdoors.”

Many sixth graders also explored local nature with the Freemans during a canoe trip of the Minneapolis Chain of Lakes. Usually Amy and Dave talk with students about faraway places. But, Dave says, “This was an opportunity to get out on the water and do something that’s pretty unique that’s only a few miles from where [the students] live. It’s far more accessible and a reminder that they can find these outdoor experiences close to home. It doesn’t have to be far away.”

During their visit, families were invited to celebrate Earth Day at a special evening event with Amy and Dave and popular guest performers The Okee Dokee Brothers. Guests enjoyed the Wilderness Odyssey Art show in the Upper School’s Martha Bennett Gallery with artwork by Blake students and faculty and visited informational and interactive activity tables. Amy and Dave signed books following the event. 

See photos from the Freemans’s visit to Blake, including pictures from the sixth grade canoe trip and the Earth Day Odyssey event. And watch the Freemans’ Breakfast at Blake presentation on their year in the BWCA.