Mountaintops and Milestones

Rebekah Lang
6th and 7th grade English, The Swain School
Allentown, PA
TTEC 2015

This is my Mountaintops and Milestones bulletin board where all students can set goals and celebrate accomplishments by adding their mark on the board. It has grown since the beginning of the year and is a constant reminder of the Appalachian Trail and the metaphor of "The Trail Less Traveled" in my classroom.

I was inspired by Block City to have my 7th grade English students create model towns for our novel The Outsiders. We considered how the plot of the book was effected by the setting. It doesn't quite connect back the the AT or land use, but I think it very well could in future years. 

I do not have a complete plan for the curriculum yet, however I do plan to continue to use the guide to teaching Leave No Trace that was given to us at a workshop. I have also woven many of the activities informally presented to us at TTEC in my classroom.

This is our decomposition matching and sorting activity (learned at our Spring workshop).

Thanks for an incredible PD experience. My students have already benefited from the few lessons I've already completed. I will continue to implement the unit intermittently and then really focus in strong in January.

Here are students from my advisory and one other I combined with measuring the years of trash they've picked up from our green space.