Learning in the Outdoors

Scott Johnson (P ’88, ’02)

by Scott Johnson, Mathematics

There is something healing about being in the outdoors. You have a chance to get away from man-made noises and distractions and can just take in the sights, sounds, and feel of your natural surroundings. Outside, there are no virtual birds, angry or not, and if you turn off your cell phone and step away from the group, there is the opportunity for solitude.

The Outdoors Program at Lawrence Academy takes students out in three primary activities: biking, hiking, and paddling. The terrain in Groton presents excellent opportunities for all levels of mountain biking. There are flat, hard-pack dirt tracks to steep, rocky hills. The biking is, in a sense, the most technical activity of the Outdoors Program; it requires the use of a fairly complex piece of machinery. The rider must stay focused on what he or she is doing. In this activity, students build up their strength, their sense of balance, and their ability to react to a quickly changing physical environment.

Hiking is perhaps the most social of the activities. There are many paths through conservation lands in and around Groton. As the group hikes, clusters of students form, and their talk runs from the mundane “What ’ s for dinner?” to some heady discussions about the global situation. All the while, the group listens for birdcalls or looks at various insects. The leaders foster a direct awareness of the environment, depending on their particular interests or expertise. Our hikes also provide students a good exercise in shifting their attention back and forth from the immediate small picture to the big picture. Students must pay attention to where they place their feet and whether that plant is poison ivy or not. Students also must look up, check out the landmarks, and keep track of where the path leads much farther down the trail. Finally, students have to pay attention to how they are doing individually as well as where the rest of the group is. Inevitably, there are those who want to get to the top of the mountain first, but the real success is when the entire group has made it.

We are also fortunate to have good water and waterways in Groton. The outdoors program offers the students opportunities to learn flat-water paddling skills in a number of ponds and beautiful stretches along the Nashua, Nissitissit, and Squannacook Rivers. For someone who has never paddled before, learning to balance in a canoe, get it to move in a straight line, and trust that it will keep you afloat can all be challenging. Although there is limited white water in the area, we try to include a white water weekend in the program each spring. This gives our experienced paddlers a chance to stretch and learn new skills.

There are also two weekend trips per term, which give us a chance to work on low-impact camping skills and devote at least one full day to our activity. These trips have included all-day bike rides on Cape Cod and Martha ’ s Vineyard, hikes up Mount Chocorua and the Wapack trail, and white water paddling on the Merrimack River and the Marsh Stream. Chances for social and physical growth in these environments abound, and participants have great opportunities to learn about themselves, others in the group, and the nature of groups.

The Outdoors Program offers a non-competitive afternoon activity. It has no other teams to beat. Score is kept during our Ultimate Frisbee games, but in the end, you win if you worked up a good sweat and lose if you did not. The hills and the rivers are not there to be conquered but to be worked with, learned about, and appreciated for their beauty. You have the opportunity to learn how to be an individual in the context of the harmony of the whole.

by Jerry Wooding, Science

Ornithology is a popular course at LA, particularly with seniors as a spring elective. Let ’ s face it: bird watching sounds easier than solving math problems or conjugating French verbs!

But from a teacher

’ s perspective, the course provides an opportunity to introduce students to birds as subjects for the study of ecology, evolution, and animal behavior.

Even more importantly, this class takes students out of doors, a place where they seldom have reason to go except for the playing fields. Between a quarter and a third of our classes are walks; we go bird watching! Our campus has some lovely trees and is surrounded by woods and fields, so there are birds around.

One parent told me that her daughter had come to her to report, “Mom, there are birds everywhere!” Indeed there are, especially at the Cow Pond which, through our repeated visits, transforms from a symbol of yuckiness and bugs to a mini-wildlife refuge.

Most springs, we see at least several of the most dramatic local birds: the red-tailed hawk, great blue heron, osprey, and barred owl. An all-day field trip to the National Wildlife Refuge on Plum Island provides a list of thirty-plus species.

These unforgettable experiences may stir a lifelong awareness of the world of nature, the need to conserve wild places, and the pleasure to be taken from a simple walk.

Jerry Wooding (P ’88, ’90, ’95)