From Our Roots to Our Reach

ECO began with one classroom, a patch of overgrown schoolyard, and a goat. In the early 2000s, Sarah Woods and Bethany Thomas were teaching short science lessons in Portland-area schools, but the impact was fleeting. They dreamed of something bigger: year-round, hands-on learning that would let students connect with the nature right outside their schools. That idea became ECO, and over the next twenty years, it grew from a single classroom experiment, a schoolyard full of invasive plants, and a goat into an enduring program that inspires curiosity, stewardship, and connection to the natural world.