Fifth-grader Isaac Fernandez of Bayfield was riding a horse for the first time in his life. At first, he was apprehensive.
“It’s too tall,” he said, but he was pushed beyond his comfort zone, and he overcame his fear of an aging horse named Chance.
Many Coloradans appreciate the outdoors. However, many people feel children are more occupied with playing video games and using smartphones than the quest for a nice hike and communing with nature.
“In this day and age, kids get less time outside and are not as hands-on,” said Tim Miller, executive director of the Colorado Outdoor Learning School and Cross Bar X Youth Ranch and Retreat Center.
The Learning School wants to change that mind-set. The outdoor-education program was moved to Durango’s Cross Bar X Youth Ranch, on County Road 223, from Lake City. The program was formerly held at Camp Redcloud and ended after 20 years when the camp went out of business. In September, it was revamped as a new program with a new board of directors. The former program director also was hired to run the program in Durango.
The program targets fifth-grade students from Durango School District 9-R schools to Montrose and Ouray districts. Earlier this month, the camp hosted students from Bayfield Elementary School.
“We want to see kids challenged and to achieve new goals,” said Tyler Treadway, program director. “We want them to go beyond and get an education through hands-on lessons.”
For students, it’s an opportunity to get out of the classroom while still tackling state curriculum, Miller said.
The facility will host about 600 students in the fall. Each session can have anywhere between 30 and 80 students. Participants are separated into five subgroups where they spend two hours participating in an activity followed by a 30-minute lesson.
Major activities are canoeing, horse-back riding, archery, riding a zipline and a rope course. Students also participate in various games and group-building exercises.
The lessons and activities are hosted by camp counselors, though the students’ teachers also are in attendance.
Lectures correspond with the activity. For instance, if students are canoeing, the lesson might focus on the fresh water ecosystem or the water cycle, Treadway said. Other topics include astronomy, local Native American history, natural resources and meteorology.
Shanna Noonan, a fifth-grade teacher at Bayfield Elementary, assisted her fifth-grade class with the zipline activity. She even took a trip down the zipline and proceeded to the rope course.
“It’s the first year we’ve done (outdoor education),” Noonan said. “The kids were really excited.”
The students spend three days and two nights at the camp without cellphones. Noonan said almost every fifth-grader these days has a smartphone. However, they didn’t complain about not having their phones throughout the duration of the camp, Noonan said.
Rita Elliott, the other fifth-grade teacher chaperon from Bayfield Elementary, was facilitating horseback riding. Two of her students expressed concern and fear about climbing aboard the massive animals, but she provided encouragement and eased their troubled minds.
It was only the second day of camp, and the students also were learning about working together.
“The team-building activity they did yesterday was very beneficial in teaching the students how to communicate with each other,” she said.
The children participating in canoeing also learned a valuable lesson about working together: It takes group effort to balance and steer the canoe.
However, in unison, the students said that their favorite part of the activity was fishing and picking “crawdads” (crayfish) out of their canoes.
“It was fun!” they said.
“I liked the games; we played ‘blob tag’ and ‘battleship’,” said fifth-grader Jamaica Garza.
The facility does more than just host outdoor-education programs. Miller, who was named executive director of the camp last year after eight years of being a program director, said the camp also was founded to provide a fun, outdoor experience for children of low-income families. The cost is about $40 for one to two weeks.
A versatile facility, it has hosted a number of people and catered to their needs.
The ranch has held programs for home-schooled children as well as the Durango High School soccer team and private schools, Miller said.
“We tailor-fit the needs of different schools,” he said.
The facility has hosted children and families from as far away as Hawaii, he said.
The camp also operates as a faith-based nondenominational camp catering to various church group retreats, he said.
The Learning School, essentially, is all about the kids and creating a positive, outdoor learning experience.
The focus is to enable visual and applied learning.
“The kids have a new appreciation for what they are learning in class,” Treadway said.
vguthrie@durangoherald.com
