When in ROAM: Summer Students Teach Their Passions

Alzar School | 15.08.17

As a part of our three-week ROAM Summer program last month, Kori Richards, our Director of Expeditions and Risk Management, wanted to design an activity that related directly to students’ lives and the places around them. So, we asked students to lead a short lesson on a topic about which they were passionate. Instructors provided example lessons that were brief, experiential, and informative. We provided a mobile library and offered ourselves as resources. The students filled in the rest.

Students and Instructors take a closer look at a trailside wildflower. Photo Credit: Kori Richards

Challis, a student from nearby McCall, approached me with the idea to co-teach a lesson on fire in the West. Fire fascinates me because it invokes ideas of ecosystem regeneration and the role that humans play in the environment. Challis views fire from a different lens: her father and brother spend their summers traveling around the West fighting infernos, often uncomfortably close to home. In our lesson, I provided the ecological background and Challis followed up with stories of fire and the role that it plays in small Western towns like ours. It was the first time many of our East Coast students had considered wildfires, let alone the direct role fire plays in their new friend’s life.

Darcy, our lone New Englander, drew upon past research into the ethical and ecological considerations of factory farms. She began her lesson without preface by forcing the expedition to don heavy backpacks and cram themselves into a small rope corral. Darcy proceeded to walk us up and down the beach until we cracked. When she informed the group of the topic of her lesson–factory farming–the group’s anger turned to appreciation of the ethical demonstration. The group spent the afternoon discussing Darcy’s decision to eat vegan, and I caught more than one student sneaking a taste of the tofu we brought for Darcy.

Each student taught their peers about something they are passionate about: everything from a lifelong connection to salmon (the fish) to the igneous rocks on Salmon (the river). These lessons represent a small part of a much larger learning experience, but they demonstrate that learning doesn’t need 4 walls, a textbook, or a teacher at the head of the class: just a group of people with an interest in the world around them.