Nancy Lakes Outdoor Leadership Trip

Excell is a month long summer program that our school district offers to help rural students (from around the state) meet standards, get help to pass the HSQE, get service learning and career development experience, obtain national trade certificates/college credit, and learn leadership skills that will help them in their future. This is my third summer teaching the camp and the first time I went on an outdoor leadership trip with the students. It was a tough one on the students as it rained the whole weekend. The objective was to have the students lead us through an 7 hour loop trail with 13 lakes and 13 portages (kids carried their boats through long portages in the mud. They had to work as a team to help those who struggled, they had to learn map skills, keep their spirits up, ration their food, keep track of time, and had to successfully deal with any challenges along the way.)..This group of kids did an awesome job and really impressed us. We didn't hear any complaining, saw lots of teamwork, they were respectful of each other and throughout the whole weekend had positive attitudes. Students set goals for themselves before the trip and discussed afterwards if they met those goals. A requirement was also that every student had to teach a (well planned out) lesson (their choice) to the group sometime during the trip.