Imagine: it’s 8:30am, and you’ve just finished your breakfast of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Quickly, you brush your teeth, grab your nametag, put on your favorite jacket, and walk out the door. Today you’ll be going to Walking Mountain’s Sweetwater Campus to begin a 5th grade hut trip (5th graders are your favorite to teach because of their energy and enthusiasm). The aspen trees are glowing a beautiful golden-yellow as you near the office. A smile starts to form on your face as you think to yourself, this is going to be a fun and memorable program.
For the first hour of the day, you and the other grad students gather food, overnight gear, supplies, and teaching materials you’ll need for the 3-day hut trip. Everything gets loaded into a 15-passenger van and a truck, and to your surprise, it all fits! After a long, windy drive along the Colorado River, you make it to your destination. The students will arrive in less than an hour, so you set up your materials and talk through the daily schedule with your coworkers. You end up having a little extra time, so you decide to play hacky-sack while you wait for the school bus to arrive.
Campers posing after cooking dinner for the group on the Sweetwater hut Trip.
Soon enough the 5th graders arrive. You recognize a few students you taught in the summer, and you give them high-fives as they walk by dawning big grins on their faces. You are assigned a group of 10 students for the trip. As you get to know your group, you learn lots of interesting things about them: the girl with short brown hair loves spaghetti but despises mustard, the tall boy with glasses can solve a rubix cube in 30 seconds, and the girl with freckles and braces just moved to Colorado from Germany. To begin your lesson, you inform the students that the theme of the trip is Energy in the Ecosystem. Students will have the opportunity to learn about food webs, photosynthesis, and decomposers, as well as how to set up a tent, be safe around a campfire, work as a team, and cook meals together.
After a fun and exhausting day of teaching and exploring, the 5th graders take on the task of making dinner for 60 people! Completing the task with only a few burnt pieces of garlic bread and two spilled bowls of marinara sauce, the spaghetti dinner is a great success! By now it’s 8:00pm, so it’s time to go outside, look at the stars, and play entertaining campfire games. The students have way more energy than you anticipated, so why not give them sugary marshmallows and chocolate to roast s’mores? Don’t worry; the campers only keep you up until midnight, which is not as long as the previous hut trip!
5th graders working together to set up a tent to sleep in for the 2-night hut trip.
Fast forward to the final day of your hut trip: this is what you and the students are most excited about; the climax everyone has been waiting for! It is time for the final game. It’s called Predator Prey. Each team of 10 students is designated an animal to be. Your team is the snakes. Snakes are in the middle of the food chain, so some teams like the owls will be hunting you, while other teams such as the mice will be hunted by you. Your objective is to work together as a team to survive for 30 minutes. There’s hunting, there’s hiding, and there’s opportunity to learn what life is like to be an animal other than a human. When the game is finished you lead a debrief of the hut trip with the 5th graders. Many campers share that their favorite memories were playing Predator Prey and cooking. Alas, it is time for the campers to go home. You share hugs and fist bumps as they pack up their stuff.
Upon getting back to Walking Mountains you are feeling a strong sense of satisfaction and fulfillment. You are also very tired, but you can’t go home yet. It’s only 2:00pm, and you have grad class to attend. Your professors are amazing; they are always encouraging and help you think critically about environmental education and your teaching practice. This semester you have been working to create a Kindergarten program titled, “Nature’s Needs”. You’re collaborating with your classmates to come up with an intriguing story about the needs of plants, animals, and humans. The hardest part for you is making sure the content is age appropriate and that Kindergarteners will be interested in the storyline. Nonetheless, you are confident it will turn out to be a fun curriculum!
The new cohort of Walking Mountains graduate students celebrating a successful start to the fall season. From left to right: Alli Menendez, Mitchell Smith, Maggie Rozko, Justin Deutsch.
As daytime slowly becomes night, you realize that as a Graduate Fellow there is never a dull moment. Life feels very busy and can be overwhelming at times, but at the end of the day, you can confidently say there is nothing more rewarding than spending time with smiling faces in such a beautiful place. Every day brings something different, from school programs, grad class, and summer camps to educational training and bonding experiences with coworkers, being a Graduate Fellow is a dynamic, once-in-a-lifetime experience!
Written by Mitchell Smith. Mitchell Smith is a Walking Mountains Foley Graduate fellow. In his free time he enjoys paddleboarding, playing soccer, and hanging out with his pet snail named Shelldon. He loves spending time outdoors and teaching 5th grade programs at Walking Mountains are his favorite.
