AMC Outdoors, July/August 2008
AMC helps students learn nature's lessons
For students from Newton North High’s alternative programs, participating in AMC’s A Mountain Classroom is more than a chance to learn about nature—for many, it’s an opportunity to experience a world that is profoundly different from home.
Over the course of three days, 17 students from the Massachusetts school’s programs, which serve kids with chronic absenteeism, difficult home lives, and needs for extra support, will hike, play games, and build shelters. Along the way, they will learn about trusting others and pushing themselves beyond what they thought possible. They’ll also experience New Hampshire’s White Mountains region, including its summits and stars.
"A lot of these students have never left the metro-Boston area,” says Newton North teacher Mike Hazeltine. “As you come up the Franconia Parkway and you see the mountains and the snow—these kids have never really seen those things. Mountain Classroom gives them a sense of independence. It allows them to make connections with other kids and learn a lot about leadership and relying on each other.”
HANDS-ON SCIENCE Shauna is a slender 14-year-old dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. As she pulls a beaver pelt over her head like a hood, she takes a few lighthearted, fashion-model steps. Kevin, who favors Patriots shirts, shorts, and unlaced sneakers, wraps a red fox fur around his neck with a mock hip-hop style.
It’s evening program, and the students are gathered for the popular skins-and-skulls class, which uses found or replica skulls and furs from animals that died in nature (of natural causes or as roadkill). The students match the animal pelts with the appropriate skulls, and guess which animals they may have come from. A Mountain Classroom instructors Mike Dufilho, Dave Weston, and Laura Maloney use the discussion to highlight natural adaptations, such as how the coloring of the red fox aids it in hunting during sunrise and sunset.
While skins may start as curious fashion statements, within a short time students hefting moose antlers above their heads are making the connection between the antlers’ weight and the animal’s powerful neck and front quarter. When they think about the energy it takes to carry that rack, they quickly understand how shedding its antlers for the winter helps a moose conserve energy.
Each year, AMC’s A Mountain Classroom hosts nearly 4,000 students from about 75 schools from across New England. The program teaches children about science and the environment, as well as leadership and team-building skills, with an emphasis on hands-on learning in an outdoor setting. Most students participate in overnight programs lasting one or two nights.
AMC employs more than 17 instructors working out of its Pinkham Notch Visitor Center and Highland Center in New Hampshire’s White Mountain National Forest and Cardigan Lodge in the nearby lakes region. A Mountain Classroom also conducts school programs in Piscataquis County as part of AMC’s Maine Woods Initiative. The Brownville Elementary School participated in an overnight program at Little Lyford Pond Camps in Maine in the fall of 2007, and three schools are planning overnight stays there this fall.
In addition to backgrounds in youth and outdoor education, instructors have a passion for the natural world. “I can’t think of a more important thing to do than teaching kids about what they can do to take care of our planet,” says Dufilho, an instructor with six years experience teaching environmental education.
Increased appreciation for the natural world is just one of the many benefits kids receive through A Mountain Classroom program. A 2007 independent evaluation of A Mountain Classroom by the nonprofit Place-Based Education Evaluation Collaborative found, among other benefits, increased student group cohesion and social behaviors and enhanced student-teacher relationships. Dave Turcotte, an English teacher with Newton North, agrees.“This is an opportunity for kids to have fun in a different environment, learn how to work together, and have a different experience with teachers. Sharing this experience with kids for three days is just not something you get in the classroom.”
DISCOVERING ORION'S BELT Jibrie is a short, street-smart 15-year-old sophomore from Dorchester, Mass. For all of her toughness, she possesses a quick sense of humor, which is obvious from her infectious laugh as well as the oversized ogre-feet slippers she wears around the Highland Center.
Recounting her first evening’s favorite moments, Jibrie says, “It was when we did the star-gazing. It was so beautiful. We got to see Orion’s belt, the Big Dipper, and the North Star.” Instructors use the night sky to connect stars to constellations and to explain why stars twinkle and seem brighter here.
Whether it’s astronomy or geology, A Mountain Classroom offers schools an opportunity to teach the natural sciences in a natural setting. Hopkinton (N.H.) Middle School has participated in A Mountain Classroom programs at AMC’s Cardigan Lodge for the last eight years as a way to look at the changing landscape over time. Bob Woolner, a seventh-grade geography teacher, says the area “offers us a lot to look at—from seeing prehistoric volcanic uplift to more recent glacial evidence. We can also teach kids about how land use in New Hampshire has changed from its original forested state to farmlands, and then back to its forested state.”
Classroom with a View, cont'd >>
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