TTEC Spring Regional Workshop at Mt. Lake Lodge

John Alexander

Fries School

Fries, VA
TTEC 2015 Cohort

The TTEC Spring Regional Workshop at Mt. Lake Lodge returned me to a place I had not seen since the 1970s. The lake is possibly on some 500 year cycle of emptying and then refilling, but the trails around it were as I remembered.

While hiking the lake trail we ran into a group of mountain bikers trying to navigate a very difficult section. It seemed to me that what we were doing, hiking, was more fun.

Our excursion to the AT and demo of trail games, trail etiquette, and other discussions made for another fun day. 

The presentation by the teachers from Giles was excellent. The work their students did on the trail gave me many ideas. 

Our current budget year will have no money for field trips so, we will look at some grant writing opportunities to get the students involved.

Looking forward to the summer program and to looking at ways I can use the AT and other trails in the classroom.

"Saxifrage is my flower that splits rocks" (William Carlos William)

by Pia Houseal-Allport 

Seven Generations Charter School

Emmaus, PA
TTEC 2015 Cohort

I've repeated this line from William Carlos William in my head in the two months since we returned from our May outing for TTEC in Virginia. As we were hiking, our hike leader (trailer!) pointed out the saxifrage and mentioned the above line from the William Carlos William poem. I immediately thought of some of our toughest students breaking through their own personal rocks.

In my role as a school social worker, I work with students who see the rocks and only the rocks every day- the barriers, the I "can'ts" , the “its her fault”, the “he shouldn't have done that”... all of the things that stand in the way of their success in school. (This doesn't even begin to address the issues within families, with siblings, of poverty, homelessness, or lack of food, fractured families that may also be barriers for our students.) Yet, day after day, these students can learn that there are flowers that break through- giving them  showing them how to persevere through hard work and effort, and it is that learned resilience that helps them when an issue feels overwhelming.

The rocks of PA…

The curriculum that I'll be working on in the coming week will focus on the links between students social emotional learning and nature. I've been excited from initially hearing about the TTEC program, to learning that 3 of my colleagues more about our local resources, specifically the Appalachian Trail in the Delaware Water Gap area in Pennsylvania. My personal focus at Seven Generations has been using our natural world as a venue for personal and emotional growth (much in the way that our curricular framework uses the environment as a context for academic growth). Linking that work with students to the local Appalachian Trail is a great fit and one that I’m excited about.

Beautiful PA Trail section- what’s not to love?

Since our return from the May TTEC weekend, our Seven Gen group has gotten out on the PA AT for two hikes. It's clear from talking with friends who hike locally, a thru-hiker met near the Allentown shelter, and reading the shelter logs that Pennsylvania is known (read disliked greatly) for our rocks. We are even affectionately called Rocksylvania. While we don't have saxifrage (at least none that I've seen), we have enough rocks to work through, step over and walk around together. I continue to think about the saxifrage on the trails of Virginia and know that by using our link to the Appalachian Trail in PA that bringing students outside and connecting with nature and hiking, students personal growth can break through those seemingly tough impermeable objects and emerge stronger students academically and stronger children/adolescents socially and emotionally.

Three of the four Seven Gen staff on the AT in PA…

Independence Day

Colleen Gentry

Blacksburg, Virginia

Falling Branch Elementary

TTEC 2015 Cohort

The Appalachian Trail is a symbol of freedom.  On July 4^th, 2015 my husband, yellow lab, Toby, and I spent that great remembrance of our independence overlooking the hills and valleys of West Virginia from a mountain top meadow. From our spectacular vantage point in the Rice Fields on the Virginia-West Virginia border, we witnessed an illuminated landscape of flashes, sparkles, streamers and blasts as Americans celebrated the nation’s birthday.  Adding to the chorus, a pack of coyotes barked, yelped, and howled from beyond the tree line.  American is wild and wonderful.

We began our July 4^th adventure from our home in Blacksburg, Virginia and concocted the idea of an evening on the trail. After a short car ride and a 1.5 hour hike, we arrived in almost heaven, a view of West Virginia.

Much to our surprise and delight, we were not alone on the mountain top.  At the close by Star Haven shelter, we met two north bound thru-hikers.  We met three hikers from Sweden, whom were in the United States for their first time.  Joining us, along with the hikers, was a seven person crew of Konnarock trail workers.  Several women had traveled to Virginia from the Ozarks to build trail and learn new techniques for their own trail projects back home.

We marveled at how the trail had brought us and a nation together in shaping America the beautiful.

From the A.T. to the Tetons

Blog Post by Rebecca King

Teacher at Christiansburg Elementary School

Christiansburg, Virginia

 In May, I attended to Spring TTEC workshop at Mountain Lake Lodge in Pembroke, VA and had an incredible experience learning from the various facilitators and from my fellow participants.  Some of the key points I took away were:

·         There are many others interested in and committed to education that takes place outside of the classroom – it is not unusual or strange for me to want to take kids hiking.

·         A support network and resources exist for teachers to implement outdoor education

·         The implementation will not always be easy or comfortable, and may require lots of extra and at times complicated planning and collaboration, but it is so, so important.

The timing of the workshop meant that I returned to school the next Monday and spend the next three weeks administering the state standardized assessments all day every day.  The testing process can have its moments of joy - celebrating academic growth and success with the students - but the overall experience is one of pressure and drudgery for all involved.  It reinforced my desire to infuse next year’s teaching with time in nature and moments of learning and success away from the computer screen.

This June, my family and I spent a week in Wyoming visiting Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks.  This trip of course included daily hikes through the beautiful mountains and valleys.  I never feel closer to my family than when we are hiking, and it inspired me want to extend outdoor opportunities not just to my students, but to their parents and siblings as well.  Not all of the families I work with have strong family bonds or shared activities.  Many do, but not all.  At Summer Institute I hope to remember this, and incorporate whole-family activities into my planning process.  Ultimately, the lasting impact of the work teachers do is carried on by parents.  

Big Ideas!

Post by Rebekah Lang

When we returned from the TTEC Spring Regional Workshop, there were big ideas that our team discussed:

• We'd like to develop a school-wide Hiker's Guide that could be taught like our current "First Six Weeks of School." We want to include Leave No Trace principles, Hiking 101 and many other things we've learned from this workshop! They provided us with materials for hundreds of lessons! We just need to figure out a good framework and develop grade level standards for our school. 
• Nature Journals: We were given time and techniques for nature journaling. My 7th grade students are studying agriculture and already had nature journals primarily used in science class. I jumped on this chance to try to incorporate the nature journals and taught them to be better observers using the timed observation activity. I integrated this into my math class where students had been learning about fractals. I had them notice details their choice of fractal shaped plants (broccoli, ferns, etc). The students LOVED it and asked to try it again the very next class! That level of engagement was so encouraging!
• Hiker's Backpacks: After learning what supplies should be in every hiker's backpack, I've decided that I'd like to find a way to have a "class set" of hiker's backpacks to sign out for when we do real hikes on South Mountain or on the Appalachian Trail. I'm asking students to donate their old backpacks at the end of the year to start to gather supplies for next year.

Ultimately, I was just so excited to see how TTEC program fits in so beautifully with our curriculum model (which uses the environment as the integrating context for learning). The Spring Regional Workshop has so many immediately applicable ideas that I cannot wait for summer!

Hiking Art - A first TTEC Ed-venture

Post by Donna Evans, Virginia TTEC 2015 

  While at the initial AT training at the Smithsonian Mason School of Conservation in Front Royal, Betty Gatewood shared how to decorate book covers.  We learned to spray out some shaving cream, add a few drops of food coloring, swirl the color around with a pencil, and place our book covers in the mixture.  Then, we scraped off the shaving cream and allowed our wonderfully decorated books to dry.  These books can be used in our nature studies along the Appalachian Trail to write notes, draw, and color plants or wildlife that we experience along the way.

In fact, we all did take our newly decorated books along during our AT section hike to Compton Gap.  An observation I made was of one participant finding some charcoal from an old fire pit and using it to draw a tree trunk.  It was a dark color and made a beautiful black tree trunk.  Then, he grabbed some green plants close to where he sat and rubbed them to create green colors for grass and trees.  In addition, he picked up some sand and rubbed it into the scene, creating a contrasting light brown color.  This new type of nature art got me really excited.  From another in-class presentation, I also learned about using water-soluble colored pencils that can be smudged later to look like water painting.  Having never really participated in nature art, I had many new things to look forward to.

During the month of May, the same month as the initial training, I purchased some BareBooks with plain white covers, purchased shaving cream, and gathered dyes and other materials needed to make colorful book covers with students – my three home schooled children.  It was a big success making the books together.  The kids (ages 5, 6, and 8) thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience.

 One thing I learned by accident is that it doesn’t really matter if you choose white or blue shaving cream.  For the first few books decorated, I had the standard white shaving cream.  Then, fearing I would run out before projects were finished, I purchased some more and didn’t realize it was a blue type until home.  We experimented with it and found that blue shaving cream turns white as you swirl it around and using blue shaving cream does not seem to affect the outcome of the project.  It still results in a white background book cover with colorful swirls.

We (my children/students and I) look forward to using our nature books on many future hikes to record our observations and reflections.  I feel very fortunate to be a part of the TTEC training course – for all that I can learn and then for all that I can share with others.

Connections and Reflections

The first weekend of our TTEC cohort in Ft Royal, VA was great.  A drizzly Friday made for a good first day to be spent mostly indoors, learning about the program and each other.  As the only high school teacher of the group, I felt a little out of place at first, but quickly remembered why most of my teacher friends are in elementary schools.  They're really friendly, and know how to work collaboratively.  I think that's what gets lost in schools sometimes as students get older.  We want students to collaborate on projects, but we don't always model that well for them in high school.

I thought I knew what I wanted in my curriculum, but the sessions with Betty, Karen and TTEC alumni threw a monkey wrench into that - in a good way.  As the only teacher from my school, and my district, I realized that I need to capitalize on what's already going on with my school, and expand it.  We already do a lot in terms of sustainability, but I don't know that it's always clear to the students why we're taking these actions.  After reflecting on what I want to do with this experience on our Saturday hike, I realized that I need to take one of these sustainability issues and make the connection to the A.T.  As we hiked, I wished my school was closer to the Trail, or any real nature besides a few street tree boxes and a landscaped courtyard.  Some members of my cohort can see the Trail from their school, or be on it in under 30 minutes.   The connections still need to be made with students, but how great to have that kind of access to the Trail, or some nature within a short walk of your school campus.  

Hopefully, I can see if there's a way to get students on the Trail at some point, but in the meantime, I need to be thinking about what resources the A.T. provides my community, and how I can help students to reflect on our dependence on it, and appreciate these benefits from a distance.  We are starting a partnership as a Monarch Sister School with a school in Mexico. Surely, if we can get students interested in Monarchs in Mexico, we can get them to see the beauty and natural wonder that's on the A.T., 90 miles to the west of us.

My photos are snapshots that remind me of the idea of interconnection - which is what I'm left thinking about after this weekend.  The Chase, was in the lobby of the dorm where we stayed at the Smithsonian - Mason School of Conservation.  It caught my attention because it's a lot of things.  It's funny, maybe a little violent, but most importantly, it's part of the natural order.  We all need resources, and provide resources to others.  We are connected, in good ways and less desirable ones too.  Making these connections with students is part of what I enjoy about working in a high school.  It's where the protection of childhood meets the truth of the world they're inheriting.  

The second is a sketch from my pocket journal - thanks, Betty - that I did during our lunch break on the Trail.  It helped me to visualize the connections I want to make between different people at my school, in my district and the larger A.T. community.  In my head, that list was starting to feel crowded and exhausting.  Putting it down on paper in a simple way, might not make sense to anyone else, but it helped me to relax, take a deep breath, look out over the skyline and realize I wasn't alone in my efforts.

Written by Mike Cruse