Mountain Spirit Institute invites you to attend, share, and learn at the

Adventure Educator's
Sharing Symposium
July 22, 2012

  Experiential educators and adventure facilitators have creative and involving ways to help people bring the adventure home—to make connections between adventure experiences and our lives back at home, work or school. This symposium unites adventure programmers to share, learn, and apply some of our best practices regarding processing, facilitation, and transfer of learning in adventure education.

The Adventure Educator's Sharing Symposium is responsive to the training and needs of each participant. By sharing, demonstrating, and talking about the processing and facilitation techniques we use in our various settings, the content, outcomes, and much of the structure of this day is co-created by participants, but with a little guidance toward the primary goal of an expanded tools-of-the trade repertoire for all participants. So, take an active role in your own learning and share your knowledge with others.

We invite you to come and share any ideas and activities that help participants develop meaning from adventure-based experiences including backpacking, hiking, camp living, mountaineering, peak ascents, rock climbing, challenge course elements, canoeing, rafting, backcountry skiing, etc.

These activities might help students and clients deepen connections with self, others, and the environment; and transfer their learning from the adventure to their lives beyond the adventure. Some possibilities include:

  • Games and ice breakers.
  • Activities, discussions, and experiences that occur before, during, or after the adventure-based experience.
  • Techniques with and without props.
  • Activities that carry metaphorical, spiritual and therapeutic elements of the wilderness experience.
  • Ceremony and ritual experiences: solos, meditative reflection, story telling, readings, poetry, contemplative awareness practices, vision questing.
  • Experiences that include renewal, reflection, peace of mind, or mindfulness.
  • Processing and facilitation strategies that are participant-centered, facilitator-centered, co-created, or that teach group members how to process on their own.
  • Activities connected to learning styles—visual, linguistic, musical, kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, natural/environmental.
  • Techniques that are active and kinesthetic, use artistic expression, or include metaphoric methods and symbolic representations of experience.
  • Alternatives to the traditional sharing circle.

Cost:

  • There is no charge! The Adventure Education Sharing Symposium is provided as a professional service by Mountain Spirit Institute, its staff, and its donors. If you wish, you are invited to make a contribution to the Mountain Spirit Institute scholarship fund.

Registration:

  • Please pre-register either through the website's REGISTER PAGE or contact us: TEL: 603-763-2668, or randyATmtnspiritDOTorg

Who Should Attend:

  • Adventure programmers, outdoor leaders, and experiential educators.
  • College faculty, undergraduate and graduate students in outdoor education, adventure education, outdoor recreation, and related fields.
  • Camp counselors and staff. Use the Adventure Facilitator’s Sharing Symposium as your mid-season staff renewal and professional development opportunity!
  • chool teachers wishing to integrate processing, facilitation, and reflection strategies into their classrooms.
  • Ropes-course practitioners.

Where:

  • Mountain Spirit Institute in Springfield, New Hampshire. We will be based at the border of Gile State Forest on a 40 acre farmhouse property at the end of dirt road. There will be plenty of places to pitch a tent in the fields surrounding the house.

When:

  • Sunday, July 22, 2012, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. You are also invited to arrive Saturday evening (after 5:00 PM) and *camp out on the property, contribute to and share a pot-luck dinner, and tell stories and play music. *(limited to 15 people)

Robert Stremba: Ed.D. , Durango Colorado

Bob Stremba, Ed.D., is director and professor of adventure education at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. Bob has also taught adventure education at Plymouth (NH) State University, New Mexico Highlands University, serves on the board of directors of Mountain Spirit Institute, and has worked adult and youth courses with Outward Bound in Colorado and Washington state.

 

 

Dexter R. Richards, B.Sc., Secretary
MSI Founder and Executive Director
Sunapee, NH & Kingston, NZ

Randy, a graduate of University of Utah in Recreation Management has been a senior international mountain guide for Alpine Ascents International, staff trainer and instructorfor Outward Bound, and guided in the Alps, Aconcogua, Argentina; Huascaran, Peru, Ecuador's Volcanoes and throughout the western Pacific Crest range and Alaska, on programs lasting from three weeks to three months. He is also performer of world and folk music and a music therapist for Alzheimers patients. He has been the Executive Director of MSI since it's inception in 1998.

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