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Yosemite Teaches Teamwork, Stewardship to Pacifica Youth

The eighth grade is a transformative time. In Pacifica, kids get a chance to commune with nature and to come of age a bit, surrounded by and bonding with their peers.

Year after year, Pacifica eighth grade students in the embark on epic journeys through programs focused on personal growth and stewardship of our Californian environment. The trip gives youth a chance to experience nature, and each other, in entirely new ways.

Students and parents work tirelessly for literally years to fund and prepare for these trips. This fundraising process is part of the overall experience, designed to empower and embolden kids just as they head into the complicated world of high school.

partners with the Yosemite Institute, which is currently rebranding as Nature Bridge, to make its eighth grader epics a reality. The Yosemite Institute provides students with a venue where they can experience anything from a day program to high country backpacking trips carrying everything they need to sustain themselves for days on end.

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“Our inquiry-based educational model is student-centered," the institute said on its website. "It allows students to drive the course of the program with their own questions. This results in many magic moments, when students make their own connections to the natural world through observation, investigation, and collaboration."

Each teacher who partners with Yosemite Institute chooses the level of intensity and duration of their trip. In addition, they determine the balance of focus between team building, personal growth and scientific information.

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Seva Steel, Ocean Shore School’s eighth grade teacher, set up a six day trip split between the Crane Flat campus on the North rim of the valley and the Curry Village campus on the valley floor. As for the focus, Seva asks for 40 percent personal growth, 40 percent team building and 20 percent information and environmental sciences. The curriculum at Ocean Shore tilts heavily toward environmental sciences, so this trip is a way to connect the students' knowledge to nature.

Crane Flat is at an altitude higher than 6,000 feet. Upon arrival at the flat's camp facilities, where their journey begins, Steel's students are told what will be expected of them during each day of the trip. First off, they are expected to be responsible for their personal space and the community space.

Working together to clean the dorms, dining hall, bathrooms and outdoor spaces is an integral part of the program’s stewardship philosophy. Courtesy and compassion are nurtured and encouraged as the students learn to work together from the moment their boots hit the ground.

Nights on the trip include outdoor education experiences such as night hikes, star gazing and campfires led by Meg Oneill, one of this year's camp instructors.

Oneill is also an instructor with Outward Bound, an outdoor adventure tour company, which gives her a keen sense of the team building and personal growth the programs are so well known for.

During each day of the trip, hiking groups confront a new personal and group challenge. Culminating in a trip through the Spider Cave, the challenges get more intense as the week progresses. Starting with a climb down through an ever shrinking rabbit hole which tunnels through a Giant Sequoia known as Dead Fred gives the kids a taste of what is to come. The next days climb to the top of Lembert Dome and exploring Dog Dome in the Tuolome Meadows brings the kids above 9,300 feet in elevation.

Working together as a unit is essential on these hikes. On the day of the most challenging hike, students had to really think about the greater good and for some the lessons of patience were the hardest learned.

Blisters, inexperience, and physical limitations were all overcome by the team building and personal growth skills the kids had discovered throughout the week. Group decisions were made by the students about how far to go and the best routes. Kids helped each other through encouragement and some even carried others' packs so the group as a whole could reach the top.

When asked, nearly every student said their favorite moment was summiting Lembert Dome or getting to the top of Vernal or Navada Falls. Even adversity, discomfort and struggles were remembered fondly. The satisfaction of completing a 10 mile hike with 2,300 feet of elevation change will last a lifetime.

“My favorite moment in Yosemite was when we were able to climb all those horrible stairs up to the top of Vernal Falls,” said Izzy Burns, my daughter and one of the eighth graders on the trip. "It was an amazing experience."

Another student, Margaret Lie, agreed.

”The many challenges like getting to the top of Vernal Falls and trough Spider Cave, as a team and as an individual, make the Yosemite trip worth it all," she said.

Many of the students mentioned how great it was to come together as a class and see cliques and groups melt away.

“This program is so important because it enables you to form a bond with all your classmates”, Burns said.

Throughout the program are reminders of the beauty and importance of our national park system and its values. A sense of place and stewardship is instilled in the students that will hopefully last a lifetime.

"There were so many moments that were transformational, but I think the highlights were seeing the kids break down social barriers, support each other and work through their individual fears and discomfort," Mary Ellen Carrol, one parent chaperone on the trip, said. "Whether we were struggling with breaking through physical limitations, or psychological ones (fear of heights or, ahem, confined spaces) it was inspiring to experience it together.”

Chaperones had no doubt that our next generation of leaders will have the awareness, compassion and the confidence to make the right choices for our world.

Check out the Nature Bridge blog and activities for more information.

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