Outdoor Education
Great outdoors provides path
to safer schools, healthier students
 Climbing walls, slogging through mud and racing in groups of three encircled with Hula Hoops are among the nontraditional activities helping students meet the character-developing goals of Nassau BOCES' Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative.
"Outdoor education activities encourage elementary and middle school youngsters to develop team building, communication, problem solving and positive social skills," says Laura Lustbader, Program Supervisor of the Nassau BOCES Parent/Child Home Programs and Youth-at-Risk Community partnership program.
The outdoor activities are directed to achieve some of the key goals of
the federally funded Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative being
implemented on Long Island in the Westbury and Freeport school districts.
The initiative aims to promote the healthy development of children, foster
positive relationships with adults, and improve attitudes toward law
enforcement and the larger community.
A dual-purpose program
With police officers from local precincts, along with selected teachers, serving as mentors, elementary and middle-school students participate in physically challenging and socially constructive activities at the Nassau BOCES Outdoor Education facilities in Brookville and Caumsett State Park.
"The strategy of the program is to put kids in a novel situation where they have to work together," says Mary Watros, Brookville Site Director of the Outdoor Education program. "We create a variety of situations that require the students to create relationships to solve problems."
Adopting what Watros calls a "positive group culture," Westbury and
Freeport elementary and middle school students help each other climb a
wall, tie-dye T-shirts, find their way on nature walks and, in one
exceptionally memorable (and enjoyably messy) activity, trudge through
deep mud swamp in a marsh.
All for one
"They couldn't get out of that marsh by themselves," Watros observes. "They had to band together to pull one another out."
Participating in this version of "Survivor with a cooperative spirit," the youngsters learn trust, cooperation, teamwork, and mutual respect for each other and for the staff and mentors in the program.
Watros says the Outdoor and Environmental Education program, which Nassau BOCES administers year-round, fits in perfectly with the goals of Safe Schools/Healthy Students. "We emphasize not the physical nature of the activities, but the process of meeting challenges—the goal being to encourage the kids to transfer the activities to their everyday lives."
"The demand for increased outdoor education programs is increasing," Laura Lustbader conclude, "because they seem to provide the glue for programs and partnerships."
"Outdoor Education has been a significant component of every program we
implement that focuses on developing positive strengths and 'refusal'
skills. Our evaluations of Outdoor and Environmental Education as part of
violence, alcohol and drug prevention programs have consistently reflected
the success of such strategies and opportunities for learning new
behaviors in making a significant difference in a child's life."
Contact:
Dr. Laura Lustbader, Program Supervisor
llustbad@mail.nasboces.org
(516) 608-6456
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