Discovering Similarities and Differences
By Kaytlynn Higgins
When looking at a person’s outer appearance, one sees only the physical traits a person possesses. To discover someone’s true identity, you must talk to them, discern their likes from dislikes, and learn their strengths and weaknesses. Through my Outdoor Adventure experience, I have learned these exact things about the classmates around me.
Starting out as a student who new few to none of the students in the class personally, it was a challenge to reach outside of my comfort zone to make new friends. Luckily, through this class, I was able to perform many activities with these peers and learn about their inner person.
In my opinion, the activity that began the initial bonding of our class was the full value house. People were able to speak their minds, and open their inner thoughts to the classroom without feeling judged. Everyone was able to be themselves and speak their minds. This team building activity helped students to recognize the perks each individual contained which, in turn fabricated many new relationships between the students.
With these new relationships, our class was able to grow closer together. Throughout the semester, we participated in activities such as hiking, biking, and orienteering. These activities allowed us to have one on one time with each student. By the end of the semester, we felt comfortable enough with each other to share jokes and funny stories of our past. I even personally began to feel comfortable talking to these students outside of class as not only peers, but friends.
Through meeting all of these wonderful people, I have grown as a person. I have learned more about the acceptance of differences than I thought possible, but I’m ok with that. Uniqueness is what makes the world interesting right? So let’s continue to live life like an Outdoor Adventure class, and open our mind to the diversity the world has to offer!
More Than Just a Gym Class
By Kirston Kille
Coming from a school with only one ‘gym’ class, that was highly unorganized, and the students only played one activity, all day, every day; I was very enthusiastic to be taking Outdoor Adventure. This class offered a wide variety of activities that any person could find interest in something.
As it has become common knowledge that physical activity is important, I believe all students should take some sort of physical education class. My problem was, and I am sure there are many more out there like me, I am not very interested in sports. Quite frankly, they bore me, and I am not a very competitive person, so I always found myself getting trampled when the game got very fierce. I found myself dreading going to gym class. I hated it. It was the same old thing all the time. I was reluctant to sign-up for another gym class my senior year, even though I needed more PE credits to graduate. After reading the course description for Outdoor Adventure, though, I became very excited for this class!
In Outdoor Adventure, there is not a basketball court, baseball bat, or volleyball net to be seen. There are no brackets for competition, and there are no championships. There are lots of teams though. For many of the activities we had to team up and work together to complete a task or participate in a quick team-building exercise. I found myself talking with other students I probably would not have talked to in the course of a normal day. Because of this, I can definitely say I have made a couple new friends!
For those not interested in sports, Outdoor Adventure offers a different kind of physical activity. Our activities ranged from orienteering and geocaching, to archery, hiking, and outdoor first aid. We played lawn games, but they were just for fun, and at the end of the day, we felt like we had all won, having spent an enjoyable time outside in the pleasant spring weather.
Each activity played to a different strength, and many of them were not exactly physical strengths either. Students who were maybe not as fit or fast of body, could still participate in some of the logic puzzles, scavenger hunts, and focus games that require a more sharpness of mind. Everyone felt they could find something they enjoyed and good times were had by all.
You do not have to be the class sports star to enjoy Outdoor Adventure. You just have to have a willingness to learn something new and meet great new people!
Outdoor Adventure: A Student’s Perspective
By Sara Vande Wetering
Through out the years I have been in the Deerfield school system we are told that we need to take a Physical Education class. Your basic activities for a gym class consist of kickball, volleyball, eclipse ball and many other activities. I have been involved in this simple physical education class for five years, until now.
Outdoor Adventure is one of the many interesting physical education classes we high school students have been able to choose from. It’s right up there with total body challenge, and Team individual sports. Yes it’s just like it sounds. Outdoor adventure consist of being active in your surroundings, to be involved in different trips to places such as Devils Lake to go hiking, or the Cambridge pool to swim. All these different activities get the students involved, gets them to know and learn different things.
One of the activities that I personally liked the most was Geocaching, this activity is were you are given a GPS system and you learn how to put coordinates into the system and it leads you to were you have to go. Geocaching was something that a lot of people around the world do. We have our own Geocaching sites around Deerfield, even around Devils Lake. It amazed me that there was such a thing that could be so simple that people do for fun in their everyday lives.
Outdoor Adventure has made me want to be more active and more motivated to get outside and not be sitting at a computer on Facebook, or Twitter all day. To get away from the worries of the Social networks that a lot of people call their “lives.” Be active. Go Outside. J
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