Day at CWES

Week 8: Class Content

One of the projects that we do for this course was doing practicum hours at either the Central Wisconsin Environmental Station or at the Boston School Forest.  After this experience, we were to write a three page paper about it.  If I had wrote all of my thoughts about CWES in my paper, it would have well-exceeded three pages. I thought that I would use my blog entries to discuss a few other aspects of my experience that didn't quite fit into my paper, as well as several pictures that I took that I really enjoyed.

One part of the education that I found interesting was that the chaperons were encouraged not to participate very much.  This approach is put in place so that the students learn to problem solve by themselves without their teachers' assistance.  I enjoyed watching the students learn to problem solve themselves while also making sure that everyone was participating fully.

There are no guarantees that my students someday will be able to go to an outdoor facility such as CWES.  This all depends on what the school district has available. As a teacher, I can take some of the ideas and activities from CWES and try to incorporate them into my classroom.  Using a compass could be successful in a class even without an expansive forested area. Also, I could use my experiences here to advocate for more outdoor education for students because I believe that the experiences that the students have at CWES are very beneficial.