"Owl Calling" expedition (or "What to do if it rains for 20 hours straight")

We'll you've all heard the story by now.  Epic rainstorms and safety concerns led us to modify the expedition.  Those reasons alone are enough to cancel a trip, but just as importantly I wanted this to be a positive experience for the students and having 90% chance of rain from the time we arrived until the time we left just did not sound fun.  It was a pretty easy call to cancel Hawn and we already had worked out a back-up plan in the days leading up to the expedition.

So we changed the the first day's programming location to West Tyson Park.  We virtually had the park to ourselves and were able to complete a lot of the team building games under cover of the pavilion.  As the rain kept coming and coming we kept saying to ourselves, "We made the right call.  This would have been miserable." When it did stop raining we were able to get in a 2-mile hike before heading for cover once again for more team building elements.

The objective of the team building elements we planned was to build team unity and chemistry between the 5th and 6th grade.  This is the group that will be heading to the Smoky Mountains together and we rarely have time to bond like this during the daily school schedule.  Group dynamic theory says that if you add or remove one person you have a whole new group, so while the kids may interact with each other often at CDS they don't often work as a unit.  We designed initiatives and games that would help this group form bonds and begin to develop group norms for behavior with the long term goal of having them working together efficiently while on our big trip.

Good team work and collaboration isn't something that just happens.  You have to intentionally build and scaffold experiences for students so they can grow their capacity in these areas.  Some of the initiatives were more cognitive and had the kids trying to work in teams to solve coded word problems or spatial/geometric problems.  Others were more kinesthetic and had the kids running around and trying to form four-person bobsled teams!  But they were all intentionally selected with specific goals around building team identity and creating a positive environment for all members for the group.

After our day at West Tyson we headed back to our secret camping location of the CDS gym!  We first headed to the gym for some more team building challenges like Team Jump Rope.  These games are great ways to get the students energized and working collaboratively to achieve success.  While the kids completed the games, our wonderful chaperones BBQ'd in the rain out back (thanks David Fitzler!) and then we all ate our camping style dinner in the atrium while the rain poured down around us outside.

After dinner we headed to the science lab for a lesson on owl adaptations and had a chance to see owl specimen pieces on loan from friends at the MDC.  Then the students each dissected an owl pellet and identified the bones of the prey it consumed. The students had bone charts which they were able to use to see if it was a rodent, bird, shrew, or mole bone.   I'm sure you heard all about this, so I'll digress... but it was awesome.  My personal highlight was just seeing my science lab jam packed with both students and adults at 7:30 at night.  It was odd, but I like odd so it was cool.

If your child came home with a bag of bones and you weren't happy, this is my public apology, but it's hard to say "No" to their sheer excitement!

After our owl pellet dissection we headed to the gym to set-up our campground.  I love camping, but we definitely made the right call as the storm was at it's most intense while we were setting up our tents.  You could hear the rain pounding the gym roof and I think we were all content right where we were!

The rain did stop long enough for us to board the bus one more time and head out for some owl calling though.  We headed to the Rollo's house where they frequently hear owls.  It was a great spot for owls and we had a perfect break in the weather, but we were unsuccessful with getting any responses.  It was a valiant effort though and I'm really glad we tried.  Plus it just opens the door up for a second attempt.  Get those winter-rated sleeping bags ready...  :-)

The next morning we were up and at it early just like if we had been camping!  We were packed up, out of CDS, and back on the bus by 7:30am where we headed to Castlewood State Park for the next full day of programming.

My what a difference a day makes! 

 It was a gorgeous morning for us to make our camping breakfast in the park.

After breakfast we continued our predator-prey study by participating in a game of Oh Deer!  In this game some students are habitat components (such as water, food, or shelter) and others are deer.  As the students played the game we collected data on how the deer population was changing throughout the simulation.  As the game continued, we reintroduced wolves to our "ecosystem" and tracked the effect of these predators.  After the population simulation game, the students graphed the results of the simulation and were introduced to the concept of feedback loops, an important systems thinking tool that will be expanded upon in class over the next several weeks.

Our final challenge of the expedition was a team building activity called Through the Cube.  Hanging from a rope in a tree was a 1m cube made of PVC pipe.  Attached to the top of the cube were a series of bells.  If you touched the PVC pipes the bells would jingle.  The object was for each individual to go in one side of the cube and out a different side of the cube without touching the pipe or jingling the bells.  The trick was that if anyone hit the pipe or jingled the bells... the whole group would start over.

Many strategies were tried in the first several rounds before the students found methods that seemed to work better.  They were all coaching each other and working tremendously well to support all members of the team.  Eventually, they were all able to successfully go through the cube and there was a huge cheer!  But then they learned that this was only Level One and that they now had to go through while connected as a group!

Same rules applied, but this time everyone on the team had to connect and go through the cube while maintaining this connection.  After a few attempts the students were able to complete the challenge and every single kid had a huge smile on their face as they celebrated.  It was grand!

We headed to the pavilion for lunch and were visited by the Park Rangers who were excited to see schools out and using the parks for programming.  They shared some important hiking safety tips and made sure no one named Turtle had stolen any milk ;-)  It was a great way to end the day and a welcome surprise.

Overall the trip was a huge success.  It met all of my programming objectives and I was proud of the work we did as a team to adapt the programming to the weather conditions.  There was a subtle message there to the students too, that when the going gets tough you find a way to make it work.  The kids were tremendously upbeat the entire trip and really grew as a group in terms of their communication, teamwork, and problem solving.  Big shout outs to Alexis Mićić, David Fitzler, Corrie Marks, Josh Mandell, and Matt Rollo for their hard work and flexibility throughout the trip.  We had a great team of teacher and parent leaders and this trip ran really smooth even though everything was modified on the fly.  YOU ALL ARE AMAZING!

Until the next adventure!