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Show The Newspaper Thursday, October 14. 1982 Page A9 Outdoor education plan approved for middle school by Morgan Queal The Park City Board of Education Tuesday gave unanimous approval to a comprehensive outdoor education ed-ucation program for the Treasure Mountain Middle School. The program, designed de-signed to become part of the regular curriculum, is the first of its type in the history of Park City schools. Outdoor education, initiated in-itiated in a pilot program last year, is largely an innovation of Dr. Brian Schiller, now in his second year as principal of the middle school. Schiller noted in his proposal pro-posal that "Park City lies in the geographic center of some of the most unique and beautiful phenomena found in nature." The middle school staff observed, he said, that many youngsters have not yet begun to form values about their natural environment because they had not experienced it. "Outdoor education became, be-came, in our view, a sensible way for kids to experience nature and to begin to develop environmental perspective, per-spective, he said. "Residents of Utah face such issues as atmospheric nuclear testing, the storage of 'weteye' bombs, the potential storage of nuclear waste and the impact of these upon people and the eco-system. It's imperative that students acquire necessary knowledge knowl-edge and skills to effectively address these critical issues." is-sues." The four major goals of outdoor education, Schiller said, are to increase the relevancy of the rest of the school curriculum, to develop de-velop the students' skills for self-learning, to recognize the interrelatedness of systems in the environment and to increase interaction among peers and teachers outside the school setting. The overall objective is to help students increase their "life skills" problem solving solv-ing and process skills which are applicable to many life situations, Schiller explained. ex-plained. Schiller's outdoor program was launched last spring with three consecutive weekend week-end trips one each for sixth, seventh and eighth graders to Arches National Monument. Monu-ment. Beside having fun and experiencing outdoor sleeping, sleep-ing, eating and living, the students learned about arch formation and exfoliation. They could identify several varieties of lizards; they could explain why certain desert plants grow in some areas and not in others; they could differentiate tracks in the sands left by snakes and mice, and "They could describe how they felt about the desert and their opportunity op-portunity to interact with it," Schiller said. "Most of all I think the kids would describe Arches as an experience, which, like all experiences, cannot be fully described to anyone. The middle school staff would argue that the preceding ing children to the concept during fifth grade and carrying carry-ing through to field experiences ex-periences of a specific nature na-ture in later grades. In fifth grade, for instance, students will go on day trips to various nearby places, such as Sundance Nature Trail, Bear River Bird Refuge or Dinosaur National Monument. Sixth graders will go on two- to five-night campouts in an "institutional" setting with cabin, kitchen and bathroom facilities but still furnishing an outdoor environment. en-vironment. In seventh grade, students will be taken on a desert trip to places like Arches, Canyonlands, and possibly a desert float trip on the Green River. The focus in eighth grade will be on a mountain environment, with trips to Yellowstone, the Uintas, and the Grand Canyon. The one negative factor involved with the outdoor program, Schiller noted, is "Park City lies in the geographic center of some of the most unique and beautiful phenomena found in nature. " reason alone is sufficient to justify an ongoing outdoor education program," he said. A total of 210 students 78 percent of the middle school enrollment of 267 took part in the Arches trip. Students paid $35 each toward meals and transportation; the school district's cost was $1,700 which already had been allocated for field trip transportation. A scholarship scholar-ship program helped students stu-dents in need of financial assistance and "we made every effort to insure that no students would be denied participation because of cost." The plan calls for introduc- that non-participating students stu-dents "may experience academic shortcomings as well as ill feelings." The program, although part of the curriculum, still remains voluntary, and "nothing we can do can overcome these shortcomings and feelings. We recognize this problem and will do all that we can to overcome it, but we still believe the benefits of outdoor out-door education far outweigh these negative factors." Schiller concluded, "In my years in education I have rarely seen the level of staff enthusiasm, commitment and support that the teachers teach-ers of Treasure Mountain Middle School have for this proposal and the concept of outdoor education. All of us believe in this and want to do it, and we demonstrate this by our willingness to spend extra time, lots of energy and in many cases, extra money and much care and attention on the young people we are responsible for each day." Outdoor education is not the only unusual program students will have available this year at the middle school. Next April, seventh and eighth graders will have the opportunity for a study-travel study-travel program to Mexico City. Last spring, five eighth graders traveled to the East Coast, visiting New. York City, Philadelphia, Washington, Washing-ton, D.C., and Williamsburg, Va. Travel to Mexico was chosen for this year to provide a foreign cultural and language experience, according to the proposal presented by the middle school staff. Another reason Mexico was chosen, Schiller said, was to reduce the cost of the travel-study program so it would be available to more students. This year's trip is expected to cost around $550 for five to seven days, about half the price of the East Coast trip. It's hoped that some 35 students will take part. Don Johnson, middle school social studies teacher who accompanied students on last year's tour, told school board members that several members of the faculty have already made commitments to aid in fundraising activities to help finance the trip. "The excellent commitment commit-ment of staff members to aid students in fund raising is indicative of a desire to expand the study travel program and make it work. "Only through a curriculum curricu-lum with a wide variety of educational opportunities can we hope to improve our school system. We believe this program is a step in that direction," Johnson said. Birthday tar October 14 October 18 Gene Moser Kim Weaver Dianne Vance Mary Austin Gerry Cooney October 15 Jennifer Sharp October 19 Craig Stevens Kerry Lawson Bob Whitfield Koby Lawson EdSnoddy October 16 TedMaedel Vince Balch October 20 October 17 Bruce Barnes PamO'Dell K.T.Taylor Barbara Barry John Nielson Carol Calder Chicken Williams Rhea Wilkinson John Bower Kathe Wood 1LEAE-IPACE Historic Rio Grande Building 1600 square feet Zoned HR-1 Stand alone office or possible retail space Best exposure, access and parking in town! BiUHlcComb Leasing Agent Capson-Morris-McComb 649-8601 P.C. 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