Remember that "Young Adventurers Club" (YAC) we started? Here's an update.

Tomorrow, we do a hike across ringing rocks park, in Bucks County, with a super-cool climb on a creek bed, then after lunch, the gang is coming over to the firehouse where I'm doing an auto extrication demo and cutting up some cars, then FIRE TRUCK RIDES!

In three weeks, we are camping out - and get this - the only way to the camp site is to canoe 1.5 miles over a lake to the camp area. Sure, 1.5 miles isn't a big deal for an adult, but for the kids - ages ranging from 5 to 12 - it's a major adventure. I've been to this site before, we're going to use a compass and map to find it on topos (even though I secretly have GPS coordinates). We'll be making fires from sparks and such.

The YAC has been great so far, and I have really enjoyed the mixed ages and the mixed genders. It's been a lot of lessons in cooperation and mutual teaching.

That's all for now

Outstanding.

Your right that even what seems a small step to us can be important. Particularly when most kids today know so little about the unpaved world.

I took a friend who grew up in the city on a survey of a cave site, mostly just to confirm the location. It was only a few hundred yards off a substantial paved road and a short walk through the woods. My friend got out and looked like he was walking on egg shells. Come to find out this was one of the first times he had been deep enough in the woods where he couldn't a man made structure. He was expecting bears behind every tree and snakes under every bush. It was all alien to him.

Often the biggest obstacle to competency is simply getting familiar with the sights and sounds and atmosphere. Even a small exposure to the outdoors can go a long way to eliminating misconceptions and prevent people's imaginations from running wild.

How many kids have you got in the YAC?

Sue

As of now we have about 30 in the YAC.

That is so awesome! Definatly every little bit helps. Our school has an auction every year, and this year we had one that was basically you go to Catalina with some teachers, and stay there for a while, well the place we went was a marine institute, and so you learn about sharks and go snorkeling and whatnot. We were taking with one of the instructors about how it is when there are people from Arizona there, who have never seen the ocean, and think that as soon as they get in the water, they are going to be eaten by sharks, and how this camp teaches them that the ocean isn't a bad place and that no you won't get eaten by a shark as soon as you get in. We were a group used the the ocean, and used to going in every day in the summer, so they didn't have to do this with any of our kids, but I can imagine how it could be scary for some.

Very Cool.