Outdoor Education During a Pandemic

I am an outdoor educator, during a pandemic, with a mandate to shelter in place. You can imagine that it would be difficult to find ways to stay relevant with my students and the defined outcomes of our outdoor leadership program.

In talking with other instructors I opened up a dialogue with my students to get their input on how to make this experience worthwhile. We settled on an experimental model where they can use a web interface to share the things they have been learning, link to resources they have found, add pictures, videos and texts, and then comment on. Turns out they wanted a blog. We can do that. So we set about create a blog structure in our LMS (Learning Management System... oh digital education you are so sexy.)

I created a page as well, to get in the spirit of things, and I realized how much I enjoy this medium. I have decided to also post my process here. Last week I listened to a podcast that made a strong case for documenting this time in our lives. In that light, I give you my first HREC 139 Outdoor Leadership and Ethics COVID19 Blog Post:

Wednesday April 8, 2020

A Brave New World Indeed

We just finished class and are trialing a new form of self directed learning. The goal is to take the work we are already doing for self study and improvement around the outdoor industry and compiling our learning into an editable Canvas Page blog for the students in our class. For this first post I want to identify my current search goals and link some things I have found and/or that are keeping me sane.

My search goals revolve around how we are recreating amidst COVID19, how to effectively teach outdoor skills in an online environment, and what other enthusiasts are doing/thinking about outside.

First, we are in week 3 of online learning and I have a new office helper:

He doesn't have a name yet because we have a 3 day rule for naming pets. At the animal shelter he was known as Hiccup.

Second, I saw a great post on the Gossamer Gear Blog, 25 Indoor Activities for Outdoorsy People During Self Quarantine It has some good ones. Gossamer Gear is an ultra light backpacking company so she is focused a lot on ultra light hiking concerns (like #2 Weigh EVERYTHING (it’ll help you make some gear list comparisons for your trips)) but there are some other great gems like #5, 8, 12, 16, 18 and more.)

I have been really interested in what This Guy has to say about recreating in the time of COVID in direct contrast with what my friends Sean and Paul are doing. I also respect what they have going on at the City, there mindset is to be low profile and self contained, enjoy remote work from their vans, and work hard projects.

One of our adjuncts, Jonathan Preuss, has a stellar personal website he uses to document his professional life at https://www.jpadventures.com/ I think this is an awesome way to present yourself to prospective employers and clients. As an up and coming outdoor professional you all could take control of your narrative and claim your place as a professional.

This is my first run at the blog and I would encourage everyone to give it a shot. You can see the discussion that led to this endeavor on this Canvas site under ZOOM-> Previous Recordings-> April 8th if you missed this session.

Feel free to edit this page and post comments below. Remember to own your edits by identifying yourself ;-)

Mike

A retrospective from 22 Hours Pre Smoke n' Fire

She'll be comin' 'round the corner when she comes. Race day is fast approaching. It's funny when I try to track back to when I committed to this race. I've come down to 3 specific instances. The first is sometime in January when I was building out the fall schedule and left an open weekend for September 12th-15th. That was the big move, creating an opportunity to race. I don't think I was committed then, more like interested and leaving my options open. But, had I not done that I wouldn't be sitting here with a pile of clothes, food, and gear in my living room.

The second instance is when my badass wife decided to run the Scout Mountain Ultra. When she started training in earnest it made this race seem like a no-brainer. At that point we were a couple with lofty endurance goals. Of course, Nat is way more disciplined and forward thinking than I am. I assure you she did not have a pile of gear, clothes and food in the living room the day before the race.

The third instance was mid June when I had the privilege of working a  NOLS course with Kait Boyle. Kait is a mountain biker. She rides her bikes fast and far. She, in fact, gets paid (not enough of course) to ride her bikes really fast for a really long time. I believe her title would be Professional Ultra-Endurance Mountain Bike Racer. It was serendipitous that I got to work with Kait for a lot of reasons, but in the context of that pile of clothes and gear in the next room she helped galvanize a vision for how I would actually do the thing. Over the course of a week, Kait helped me understand what it was I was actually going to attempt. She patiently answered my questions gear, food, mental planning, strategy, and training. Most importantly she made it seem like an event I could actually complete. By the end of our hiking course I had motivation and a training plan. Up until that point I had only a vague understanding of how I was going to get ready to ride.

Well, over the next 3 months I faithfully plodded along with the training plan, slowly acquiring bits and bobs to put on my bike and my person for this attempt. By the time school started I was a few weeks out, tired, and worried about getting sick. The last 3 weeks has been a balancing act of "cross training" on the river for classes, and trying to keep the fall sinus infection/cold train at bay. This put a major damper on my final ramp up/taper of the training plan, but I figured I wouldn't do anyone any good if I just imploded. So, here I sit on the eve of the race wondering if I put in enough time, if I am bringing too much gear, if I am not bringing enough gear, or if it doesn't matter because my body is going to self destruct either way.

I have been assured by people I trust that I am going to be fine. I bet they are right. There is a well established pattern of anxiety and stress before a trip that settles down once all the other options and responsibilities slip into the rear view as the trip commences. I am patiently looking forward to that sense of inevitability tomorrow as I roll down the Boise greenbelt in a pack of 60ish riders. If all else fails, I hear that the food is great out at Smoky Bar.

Mike