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Adventure Based Learning at RGS is focused on connecting students to nature, their community, and themselves. Students grow in their sense of place through various activities such as free-play, fort-building, sensory awareness games, team-building, hikes and overnights. This sense of place helps students gain confidence in navigating the outdoors and themselves, understand ecological connections in nature and has been shown to increase the likelihood that they will grow into engaged citizens.
Our youngest students begin with exploring the campus and nearby areas, while older students take on service learning projects, longer hikes, and overnight trips. Along the way, we take time to build community, learn how to overcome challenges, and connect with nature, which we are so fortunate to have surrounding our campus.
Adventure-based learning focuses on spending time outdoors exploring and taking appropriate risks in a “challenge by choice” environment. Sixth graders participate in a Ropes Course Challenge Day, which develops students’ intrapersonal skills by providing them with the opportunity to increase self-awareness, gain insight, think critically, accept responsibility, develop trust, and challenge personal boundaries. Other grades experience opportunities to practice these skills through treks around campus for our Pequenos and Grandes, learning to navigate uneven terrain, climb slippery hills, design tree forts, and “rappel” down slopes. Second-grade students create and care for nearby natural areas. They process theme studies like Space and Pioneers in these spaces with games and free-flowing activities. Fourth-grade students gain a plethora of insight and self-awareness in their overnight trip to the Valles Caldera, where they learn about ecosystems, sleep away from home, enjoy simple meals created together, explore, play, and grow together in a safe, beautiful, and adventurous setting.
Time in adventure-based learning is designed to foster conversation that arises from activities so that students can engage in real-life situational problem-solving. While Pequenos are making relationships with nature and each other, the first graders are building a giant eagle’s nest from found objects. This nest becomes a place where other classes can explore, care for, and create their own activities. The program designs recreational activities for students to enhance interpersonal skills by practicing leadership skills, respect, building relationships, demonstrating empathy, and practicing tolerance and trust. Students in all grade levels participate in weekly hikes, challenges, or activities.
In addition, the program fosters a sense of community and reinforces values of truthfulness, trustworthiness, responsibility, and students’ personal best. The learning-by-doing model of experiential education helps students gain insight into a physically and emotionally safe school. Experiential education alongside Responsive Classroom simultaneously cultivates the schools’ goals of being a nurturing, child-centered environment. Working tandemly, these programs teach emotional skills (identifying feelings, delayed gratification, handling stress) to deal with life’s issues.
OVERNIGHTS:
One beloved tradition at Rio Grande School every spring is the chance for the 4th, 5th, and 6th grade classes to participate in overnight trips. These trips allow students to explore new areas of New Mexico, stretch their comfort zones by sleeping away from home in unfamiliar places, and build stronger connections with their classmates and educators through team-building activities and bonding over shared experiences.
4th graders stay at Hummingbird Music Camp in Jemez Springs. They spend their two days exploring Valles Caldera National Preserve, where they learn about the ecology and geology of the Jemez Mountains, play among some of the only old-growth ponderosa pines in New Mexico, and have a chance to see amazing wildlife, including elk.
5th graders journey back in time with visits to ancient Pueblo sites at Tsankawi and/or Puye Cliff Dwellings before camping out at the Ponderosa Campground in Bandelier National Monument. They hike down Frijoles Canyon and see evidence of previous wildfires and subsequent regrowth first-hand. The 5th graders also learn to set up their own tents, help cook and clean up meals, and Leave No Trace principles.
6th Graders spend four days exploring west-central New Mexico with Cottonwood Gulch Expeditions. They see the black rocks of El Malpais National Monument, the astonishing hoodoos, and rock formations near the Bisti Badlands. They rock climb, camp below Mt. Taylor, and ascend the summit for a sunrise hike! This trip is a wonderful capstone to students' time at RGS and a fitting culmination of their experiences on previous trips and adventures.
