Converse County School District Gifted and Talented Kids

The setting was the Medicine Bow Mountain Range, Ponderosa pines, and a trickling stream in September where students from the Douglas Advanced Learner Program at CCSD#1, visited the Wilderness Camp located at HR Camp near Esterbrook, Wyoming. They participated in leadership training activities that teach students to work as a team in order to solve complex problems requiring multiple skills in order to be successful. The activities were geared specifically toward age groups of students in grades three through ten and encouraged kids to use all their senses while learning in an experiential “classroom” setting that most people can only dream about. Students made drawings in their journals of things they could hear or things they could smell, challenged themselves physically, and worked as a team to overcome barriers in an obstacle course; all the while learning how to be supportive of and value the differences in each other.

Here are some of the things the students had to say about their day at camp, “I didn’t know my friend was good at balance, we were able to make it because she helped me”, “I didn’t know some of these kids very well but we have a lot in common”, “I learned that if I’m really quiet, I can hear the forest”, “Did you know there are green frogs in the creek?”, “Small people can work with big people and make a good team”, “This is like summer and school all at the same time”, “I thought there were things I couldn’t do, now I don’t think so”.