An Intense Intensive

January 17-27, 2010

A quick background on how the grad program works. The majority of my class work is done online. However, for twelve days of the semester, we come together with all of the other people in the program who aren’t GAs to go through an intensive. Every semester the location of the intensive is different. As this is my first one, the location was twofold: Atlanta and Chattanooga.

For the first half, we spent our time touring the greater Atlanta area visiting schools, nature centers, the Atlanta aquarium, and the Atlanta zoo getting a view of their outdoor education programs as much of our focus and discussion was focused on the No Child Left Inside topic.

It seemed every waking moment was spent with my fellow classmates as we all slept in the same house (although some chose to sleep outside), fixed meals together, crammed into two vehicles, and even climbed trees together.

The Chattanooga experience also included the nature center and schools. However, our services were required in a different way. We were asked as a class to write curriculum for helping children achieve a sense of place. This was the first step of a chain that the school administration was hoping would take place. If students were taught of the importance of taking care of what was around them, they would take that mindset home and thus begin to care about their neighborhood. By getting their parents involved. Through exploration and mapping, our team tried to get the kids to discover what is round them, make a connection with it, and then understand the importance of taking care of it.

Our project was not only to develop this in theory but also be the pilot to a group of students at a local Chattanooga school. Develop it one day, implement it the next. In my book, that is the definition of intense.