Departments Take Their Coursework to the Adirondacks

09/22/2015 

Active learning recently took two academic departments outside of their traditional classroom settings for overnight trips into the Adirondack wilderness.

Both the College’s history and childhood/early childhood education departments have voyaged to the William H. Parks Family Center for Environmental and Outdoor Education at Raquette Lake over the past two weeks.

Nineteen SUNY Cortland childhood/early childhood education worked with students from Old Forge Elementary School on Sept. 22.

Twelve sophomore-level history students along with six of the department’s faculty members made the weekend trip Sept. 11 to 13. Nineteen childhood/early childhood education majors and five faculty members departed Sept. 21 for a three-day trip, with the primary purpose to connect pre-service teachers with students from Old Forge Elementary School for the first time. The latter partnership, which brought third-, fourth- and fifth graders to SUNY Cortland’s outdoor campus for the day, was initiated by Assistant Professor Chris Widdall and Jeremiah Best ’11, M.S.Ed. ’15, who recently began teaching at the school.

“We’ve been bringing pre-service teachers for a three-day outdoor education experience at Camp Huntington since 2000, but this is the first time we’ve worked with the elementary students while up here,” said Professor Beth Klein, who made the trip along with Lecturer Renee Potter, Associate Professor Shufang Strause, Associate Professor Kim Wieczork and Widdall. 

“Our pre-service teachers worked to prepare activities on Great Camp and Adirondack history, Adirondack animal survival and nature awareness and observation for the elementary students,” Klein said.

History majors and faculty members took a weekend trip to the Adirondacks from Sept. 11 to 13.

The History Department trip brought students in HIS 290: Historical Methods to the wilderness with the goals of building a sense of community among both students and faculty members, introducing them to the history of the camp and discussing the paths a history major can take after graduation. Students identified the specific skills the major already has taught them and came up with more than two dozen relevant careers that make use of those skills.

“Our goal is to help our students think and talk about the skills they are learning as history majors so that they can communicate effectively with employers who seek those skills,” said Associate Professor Kevin Sheets, who made the trip along with Assistant Professor Ben DeLee, Assistant Professor Laura Gathagan, Associate Professor Scott Moranda, Professor and Department Chair Randi Storch and Professor Brett Troyan.

Based on student feedback, both groups plan to build on their Adirondack getaways in the future.