OUr Core Programs

At CEI, we create innovative, meaningful experiential education programs for people across the lifespan.
  • Our flagship program, a Community of Families in Nature, serves families with children of all ages.
  • Our Roots & Wings Learning Community program serves elementary and middle-school-aged children.
  • Our Green Seeds Internship program serves high school and college students and groups.
  • Our Nourishing Gardens program teaches adults how to create ecologically beneficial food growing gardens. 

FAMILIES IN NATURE (CFIN)

A Community of Families in Nature (CFIN) provides fun, friendly opportunities for families to spend time together in nature. On Sunday afternoons each month, CFIN outings suitable for all ages take place in natural areas at and surrounding Freetown Farm in Columbia, Maryland. ​

Green seeds Internship

Roots & Wings

The Roots & Wings Learning Community provides children with opportunities to develop both their roots and their wings through holistic, experiential learning programs.
Roots & Wings aims to provide an educational experience for home-schooled children where their knowledge, creativity, and voices are nurtured through nature-infused lessons and activities. 
Our high school and college internship program gives students experiential education opportunities in a variety of areas related to our mission - from growing food and exploring issues of food sovereignty, to learning about and supporting ecosystem health, to thinking through what it means to create a resilient community, to how time in nature supports physical and mental health. ​

Nourishing Gardens

Nourishing Gardens transforms lawns across Howard County into ecologically beneficial growing spaces. We teach community members how to take lawns at homes, businesses, community organizations, and schools and transform them into gardens that nourish people, our community, and nature.

Participant Privacy policy

special projects

Freetown Walkable watershed

A Walkable Watershed integrates the flow of water and people into a cohesive strategy to improve the overall health of a community and its surrounding watershed. The Freetown Walkable Watershed is an ongoing initiative uniting the community around our vital waterways.