Lockport High School Starts the Year with Climbing Wall Training!

Lockport High School was one of the many schools around the country that used their Carol White PEP Grant funds to infuse adventure into their physical education program.

Project Adventure's PEP Grant Implementation Specialists, Bill Bates and Wayne Berger worked closely with grant coordinator Pat Seidel to develop a challenge course installation that meets Lockport's goals for improving PE in the district.

This week, Darryl Essensa, a PA trainer and former Physical Educator, is working with physical educators from Lockport in an intensive training which combines our Adventure Programming and Technical Skills Intensive - customized to meet their specific goals.

The educators are learning practical skills for using the challenge course equipment effectively including:

• Standard operating procedures and safety guidelines.
• Understand the applications for equipment including harnesses, helmets, carabiners, and belay devices and belay set-ups.
• And knot-tying skills, belay team skills
• Challenge course take up and set down procedures and equipment retrieval.

The educators are also learning the soft skills required for effectively using adventure in-line with curriculum standards for Physical Education including:

• The core concepts of effective PA programming including Challenge by Choice (c), Full Value Contract and the Experiential Learning Cycle.
• How to use sequencing, debriefing and facilitation skills to achieve desired outcomes.
• They will experience the activities that they will be expecting students to participate in.
• They will learn to infuse fun, positive and appropriate risk taking and trust into their classes and teaching methods.

At the end of the five day training, educators will be able to effectively implement Project Adventure into their Physical Education curriculum. The result will be students who are more engaged in physical activity and have learned tools for goal setting, appropriate risk taking and have a better idea of what they are capable of - not only physically, but mentally, academically and socially.

Interesting in bringing an adventure program to your school, agency or organization? Interested in learning more about how to apply for Carol White PEP Grant funding? Contact PA today!

http://www.pa.org/ bbates@pa.org 1-800-468-8898 x 4554