Adventure Education in the Wilderness
by Kathy Henderson
Adventure Ed students use map and compass for orientation
The Immersion Semester is what experiential education is all about,” says Christopher Mulcahy, a student participating in the fall 2005 Adventure Education Immersion Semester.
“The environment supplied the group with many choices and challenges. The opportunity to reflect on these challenges enabled us to bring lessons about leadership, tolerance for adversity and empathy toward others from a starlight to a streetlight environment.”
Groups of about 10 undergraduates in the Adventure Education major, under faculty instruction, head out into some of New Hampshire’s most rugged wilderness to undertake the field-based portion of the program.
Associate Professor Bob Stremba of the health and human performance department explains, “The students take a block of four courses totaling 15 credits. During the first half of the semester, these occur largely through a series of extended mountain backpacking expeditions lasting four to 11 days each, interspersed with blocks of three-hour classes back on campus. The students learn a variety of outdoor skills, professional outdoor practices, trip planning, adventure leadership and experiential instruction strategies. The second half of the semester they’re back on campus learning and becoming certified as Wilderness First Responders, and studying adventure education philosophy and theory. This sequence follows the experiential learning model. Students are first immersed in an experience and taught the tools to actively reflect on that experience. Then they can connect theories and models that provide the ‘why’ behind the ‘what’ so that they can apply their learning to the next experience.”
Bob Stremba helps Caitlin Driscoll use a topographic map to locate and identify natural features
Students read eight to 10 texts, write a number of reaction papers, complete a major research project, write their philosophy of adventure education and engage in several course projects.
To participate in the Immersion Semester, students go through an application process that considers their performance in previous Adventure Education courses, overall grade point average, a written essay and an interview. Students not selected can take the same courses separately during other semesters.
“The fall 2005 program began with four days of backpacking and classes in the Baldface Royce Range, northeast of Jackson (N.H.),” Stremba said in October. “We’re leaving in a few days for the Pemigewasset Wilderness. We’ll start on the northeast end near Crawford Notch, and finish down near Lincoln. Altogether, we’ll spend a total of 20 days in the field this semester.”
Student leader-of-the-day Dan Meegan guides the group through the White Mountains.
Active student involvement is key to the program. Stremba says, “Students are responsible for planning much of the field work, including campsite selection, map and compass orienteering, route finding, weather prediction, group program management, and planning menus and provisions. Participants take turns leading the group through a day’s activities, knowing that their planning and leadership affect the welfare and success of the entire group. If a leader-of-the-day makes a miscalculation on a trail, it can mean hours more hiking for the entire group, but that provides a powerful learning experience. The environment provides immediate feedback to students about their decisions.” He adds, “The physical and academic demands can be rigorous, but the results can be transformative.”
Students are also steeped in the theory and application of outdoor leadership, including program design, judgment and decision making, risk management, and leadership models and styles. Along with mastering the skills necessary to become teachers of adventure education, the students explore the philosophical basis and ethical issues and theories of adventure and experiential education. In the Wilderness First Responder course, students learn to handle medical emergencies requiring extended care in remote settings. Those who complete it successfully receive a Wilderness First Responder certificate that is valid for three years.
“These students commit not only to their own success, but to the success of their program peers as well,” says Stremba. “When we’re out in the field, they’re making the plans and they’re making the decisions. Faculty help students connect their successes and challenges to models and concepts of leadership, instruction, group development and decision making studied in the classroom and during lessons taught in the field.”
During this fall’s venture into the Pemigewasset wilderness, most of the state was under a flood watch. After spending one of the stormiest weeks of the year in the drenched wilderness, the team had to return two days early due to flooding.
Adverse conditions and all, students participating in the Immersion Semester have nothing but praise for the experience. Mulcahy concludes, “The teachings have been my life and my classmates my family. I can’t say for certain how my life would be different had I not taken this course, but I can say it was worth it.”
