Skills education has always been a passion of mine, particularly with youth in the outdoors. In fact, for most of my time in the trails world, it has been the primary focus, with youth corps, Americorps, environmental education and career-training programs, including the Upper Valley Trail Alliance’s High School Trail Corps each summer.
However, I was recently given an enriching and, hopefully, impactful experience teaching trail crew class at The Sharon Academy. During their final-period elective this fall, along with TSA teacher Chad Behre, I was able to teach and lead a group of students to complete a milelong loop trail throughout TSA’s 94-acre campus.
The purpose of the class was, of course, to teach conservation values and construction skills to students, but also to provide opportunities to work, learn and explore the outdoors for a generation that is increasingly sedentary and screen-tethered.
From the first class session, it was apparent that drawing a trail design diagram on a white-board was not the best way to teach anyone — let alone teenagers — how to build something almost comically tangible.
Within five minutes of the first class, we were opening brand new tools with fancy names like McLeod, explaining safety, and then working on the trail. The work progressed slowly at first as we were able to take appropriate time to allow students to learn each technique, skill or concept thoroughly and then apply those skills in the most hands-on way.
Ultimately, the class completed a mile-long loop trail through their wooded campus. It runs along the rolling bluffs of Whitewater Brook, through a formerly isolated outdoor classroom, over a class-built bridge made from trees felled feet away and further into the TSA property to connect with a large network of trails with incredible potential.
What was most poignant to me in this class was not just how effective and multi-faceted this type of hands-on education is for students, but also how it allows them to retain and reinforce wide-ranging knowledge that can be applied to life overall.
Not sure what I mean?
During the course of this project, we explored multiple disciplines, applied them to a single project and then completed the project through all stages.
First, students had to conceptualize a large, dynamic project and decide how to proceed, and in what order. This developed skills in planning, logistics, time management and general critical thinking.
Next, the class collectively decided where to construct the trail — this, as you can imagine, is a complex task that reinforced the skills of democracy, spatial design, a bit of psychology/sociology (where do people wantto go and where are people goingto go) and a chance to be creative to give the trail a sense of je ne sais quoi(an indefinable quality that makes something distinctive or attractive).
Then the students learned skills for building trails and structures using only their own sweat equity. This is a prime example of how physical education — endurance, coordination, health — can be incorporated into a modern and effective high school education.
Simultaneously, the students were learning how to design and construct trail structures such as steps, staircases, drainage culverts, rock structures and, perhaps most exciting of all, a bridge.
In order to build and design these structures, students had to develop an understanding of slopes, grades, and even employ some algebra by incorporating and reinforcing mathematics into real-world, hands-on education.
Beyond the rigid rules of trail design (such as 20 percent maximum grade, between 2 and 5 percent cross-slope, 6-foot corridors), students learned why these rules exist: Water flows downhill during a storm and becomes a trail’s worst nightmare.
When trails are built with these dimensions, the force of the water is mitigated enough to minimize trail impact. Why is water such a powerful force? It weighs 62 pounds per cubic foot and sticks together due to hydrogen bonds — applied and reinforced physics! I was very lucky to have Behre, a TSA mathematics teacher, there instructing alongside me.
In our penultimate project, we constructed a 10-foot bridge over a gully in the trail made from hemlock trees 5 feet from where the bridge now stands. In building the bridge, the students learned about some principles of engineering (physics again), design and lots of hands-on construction skills. However, one thing they did not get, was skill in using a chainsaw — that was left for me to handle.
It is important to realize how effective and necessary this type of education is for American youth today. Not all students learn best in the classic classroom setting or while receiving typical auditory, lecture-based education. Giving students additional ways to learn and reinforce knowledge is imperative to helping them succeed.
It was great to teach high school students new skills, outside giving back to their school and to their community.
From myself and everyone at the Upper Valley Trails Alliance, I want to thank Chad Behre and The Sharon Academy for giving students and myself the opportunity to participate in the trail crew class!
Sean Ogle is the trail programs director with the Upper Valley Trails Alliance. He can be reached at sean.ogle@uvtrails.org or 802-649-9075.