Be Outside · Learning Design · Utah

Outdoor learning,
built with the people it's for.

Be Outside designs place-based learning — custom apps, culturally grounded lessons, and filmed outdoor experiences — for schools, tribal education programs, and organizations that want students connected to the land.

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15+ Years in the classroom
450+ Students on the San Juan River
100% Wellness and curriculum integrated
What I Do

Tools, lessons, and experiences
rooted in place.

Every project starts with the place, the students, and the community they come from. From there, I build what fits.

01
Learning Apps & Tools

Custom web apps that support how students learn — field tools, writing diagnostics, and lesson delivery that works where your students actually are. Designed by a classroom teacher, so they fit real class periods and real constraints.

02
Curriculum & Lesson Design

I help tribal education programs, schools, and organizations create lessons that center the knowledge, languages, and places of their communities. Community knowledge holders help shape every lesson, and the approach is grounded in my CLASP research on culturally disruptive pedagogy.

03
Outdoor Learning Experiences

Filmed trail and river experiences with teacher guides and student materials, ready for any classroom — no field trip budget, permission slip, or nearby trailhead required.

Tent at canyon camp at golden hour, Bears Ears country
The Origin

Born on a hillside. Built for every classroom.

During Covid, Stu Baggaley hiked to the mouth of Birch Canyon near his house, broadcast his surroundings live on Zoom, and taught an outdoor poetry lesson in real time. Students stepped outside wherever they were — backyards, apartment steps, driveways — wrote their own poems, and came back to share.

It worked. And it stuck.

Be Outside grew out of that moment. Today it's a learning design studio: I build tools, design lessons, and film experiences for anyone who wants students to feel the land — whether or not they can get there.

San Juan River canyon walls
San Juan River · Bears Ears
Rafts on the river at dawn
Dawn on the River
Group hiking the Mt. Naomi trail
Mt. Naomi · Bear River Range
Outdoor Experiences · How They Work

A real place. A real experience.
In any classroom.

1
Buy an experience

Choose a trail or river experience. Each experience includes filmed footage, a teacher guide, and student learning materials — everything you need to run it Monday morning.

2
Bring the place into your room

Play the footage with your class. Stu narrates from the trail, modeling observation and inquiry. Timer footage lets students work while the landscape rolls behind them.

3
Send them outside

Students step outside wherever they are — the school yard, a sidewalk, a park — and apply what they learned. Then come back and share. Breathe for Change moments open and close every experience, holding the whole thing together.

Our Own Work · Experiences

Every experience is a place
with a story.

Each Be Outside experience is built around a real location — its geology, its ecology, its Indigenous history, and what's happening there right now. The trail to Birch Creek mixes plants that have grown in Cache Valley for centuries with newcomers people brought from far away. The San Juan River is at the center of water rights fights across the Southwest. Mt. Naomi sits in a national forest navigating grazing, recreation, and conservation pressures. These aren't just places to visit — they're places where real decisions are being made. Students learn to read a landscape the same way they'd read a headline.

Aspen and cottonwood grove on the trail to Birch Creek, Smithfield, Utah
Experience 01 · Trail
Trail Walk

Walk the trail to Birch Creek in Cache Valley from anywhere. A short film, four lessons in noticing, wondering, and connecting, two leveled readings, and a nature journal. Grades 3–8.

Available now · Free →
Mt. Naomi trail — looking down on a neighboring peak
Experience 02 · Mountain
Mt. Naomi

From alpine meadows to the summit ridge, students identify the plants and rocks of Utah's high country while following the Haudenosaunee story of the Great White Pine — and what it means to build peace from the ground up.

In development
Rafts on the San Juan River at dawn
Experience 03 · River
San Juan River

Canyon walls, cottonwoods, and the living history of one of the most storied rivers in the American Southwest. Ecology, observation, and place-based storytelling on the water.

In development
Summit rocks with lichen and mountain views

"The outdoors is for everyone — including teachers who feel stuck inside."

Philosophy

Outdoor learning isn't just about nature.
It's about whose nature gets centered.

Be Outside is built on culturally disruptive pedagogy — centering Indigenous knowledge systems and the voices outdoor education has historically left out. Every experience is wellness and curriculum integrated, designed to support the whole student, not just standards on a checklist.

Place-Based Learning

Every experience is rooted in a specific place — its geology, ecology, and the communities who have known it longest. Location isn't backdrop. It's curriculum.

Culturally Disruptive

Grounded in CLASP research on Indigenous pedagogy. We ask whose stories get told about a landscape and work to expand that circle.

Curriculum-Integrated

Every experience maps to real classroom standards — built to teach, not just inspire. No extra planning, no guesswork. Open it up and go.

Whole-Child Wellness

Breathe for Change practices run through every experience — not as add-ons, but as the rhythm that holds the learning together. Students arrive, breathe, observe, and leave differently than they came.

Stu Baggaley on the trail
The Founder
Stu Baggaley
Educator · Researcher · Learning Designer & Developer

15+ years in the classroom. 450+ students taken down the San Juan River through Bears Ears country. A researcher, a handpan player, and the person who once hiked Birch Canyon on Zoom to prove that outdoor learning doesn't need a field trip bus. I consult with schools and tribal education programs on apps and curriculum that put community knowledge at the center.

M.S. Learning & Technology Western Governors University
CLASP Researcher Culturally disruptive pedagogy · Spencer Foundation · Published 2020 & 2024/25
Breathe for Change Certified Educator
6th Grade Teacher Edith Bowen Laboratory School, USU
Sunset over mountain lake with birds in flight
Let's Talk

Have a project in mind?

Whether you need an app, a lesson series, or an outdoor experience built around your place and your students, let's talk. Or just ask for updates on the outdoor experiences.

I'll get back to you personally. No spam.