|  | Saint Paul students learn wilderness survival skills
2/26/2003 11:00 AMIt might not be the Australian outback or an Amazon jungle, but from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 27, Saint Paul students in grades 6-12 will try to survive Saint Paul’s Battle Creek Park.
The students, from three schools with an environmental science focus—Battle Creek Environmental Magnet, Cleveland Quality Middle School and Harding Senior High School—are participants in the Wilderness Adventure program. For the past several weeks, they’ve studied math, geography, communications and science in a classroom. Now, through the Wilderness Adventure program, they’ll have an opportunity to put their classroom skills to the test in the wild.
At 9:45 a.m., 15 teams comprised of one student from each school will gather at Battle Creek Environmental Magnet, 60 S. Ruth St., where they will meet their teammates for the first time and prepare for their adventure.
At 10:45 a.m., the teams will be dropped off at different locations around the park with nothing more than a compass and a map. Using their math and geography skills, they’ll follow the map to a survival pack containing food, cooking supplies and materials for a fire. Using their communications and science skills, they’ll work together to ignite a fire, cook their lunch and extinguish the fire. Then, once again relying on their orienteering skills, the students will trek back to home base—Battle Creek Environmental Magnet.
The purpose of the program, according to Jill Danner, an educational assistant and environmental internship coordinator at Harding Senior High School, is to encourage students in the science-based elementary and middle schools to continue in the science program at the high school level. “We hope that seeing what the older students know and experiencing the thrill of completing an adventure will keep these students interested in exploring science and all that our schools have to offer,” she said.
The Wilderness Adventure program is funded through a grant from the U.S. Department of Education.
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