A Day in the Life
Posted by SCC on Monday, June 6th, 2011.Written by Christy Bolognani, a Community Crew Leader with the Los Valles Region:
2011 Los Valles Community Crew Leaders
This week was the beginning of our Youth Crew Leader training program. Up until today, things were progressing as expected: filling out paperwork, discussing conflict resolution, and leading stretch and safety circles. When I woke up on this particular Thursday morning, I knew today was going to be a bit different. As I headed to work, I began reciting out loud the words I would use with the Salida 6th graders later in the morning on their environmental education field trip. We SCC Community Crew Leaders had a special role to play during their trip to Brown’s Creek. We would be facilitating environmental activities and games with them, some of which we had only practiced once or not at all. I was a bit nervous about the ordeal, to be perfectly honest. I wanted so badly to do well and give the kids a memorable experience.
Snow flakes swirled around the SCC vehicle as we rolled up on 2 yellow school buses. “Oh, they’re here already,” we all said aloud. We had been hoping to arrive on site early enough to get a feel for the area and maybe practice an activity or two. My nervousness finally began to subside once I met my group of kids. They were so excited, so full of energy! Keeping them all together in one spot was quite the task. We played a tag game called “Bear, Trout, Mosquito” that was supposed to teach them about the impacts of radically increased or decreased populations on those around them.
Being Silly while Learning Lessons
After a short hike through the woods where we discussed tools and trail components, we arrived back at the buses where my group would finish the day. This spot was the highlight of my whole trip because I was told by one of their teachers that I had a whole third of the group to myself to facilitate games and activities with! For a whole 15 minutes! I began at once by circling them up and launching into an activity called “Habitat Lap Sit,” which was used to demonstrate the interconnectedness of the four essential components of animal life (food, water, shelter, and space) and their impacts on population stability. After completing this activity and another called “Silent Stalking” to show how predators stalk their prey in the wild, we rotated groups and I got a different third of the group to play with. A final rotation at the very end ensured that I had the opportunity to facilitate all my activities with each of the students from my original group.
As we waved goodbye to the kids and headed back toward Salida, my fellow crew leaders and I debriefed the day and unanimously agreed that the trip was a huge success, both for the kids and for our training. We received invaluable hands-on experience facilitating with a new age group that we were mostly unfamiliar with, and gained the confidence necessary to be strong leaders for our crews in the coming weeks. I hope the kids had as positive an experience as we did. Telling from the shouts and giggles bellowing from the bus windows as they drove off, I can almost guarantee it.
