Stewardship!

Today was another spectacular day.  Today I was with the Wolverines and the theme for the day was stewardship.   The students first defined stewardship, then hiked 2 miles up a trail (part of which was worked on by last year's 8th graders) and worked for a solid 2 hours on trail building.  The scenery was amazing and I couldn't  believe how hard the kids worked.  The Wolverines were paired up with another group today, the Bison, and students worked with pickaxes, shovels, and rakes and made great progress on what is going to be a four mile loop trail that starts and ends at the Teton Science School.  After working and eating lunch the Wolverines broke away from the rest of the kids and spent time honing their artistic talents while reflecting on their day.  Each student was given their choice of pencils or water colors and spent ~20 minutes drawing their interpretation of the Tetons.  It was a long hard day of hiking, working, sun, and spectacular views.  The kids enjoyed the trail building and there were many comments regarding how much fun the work was.  Enjoy the pictures - it was another great day for them.

Video: This is a small part of a great game called camouflage that the kids love.  This is how it works:  a TSS leader any an moment in the day yells out "CAMOUFLAGE", closes their eyes and the kids immediately scatter.  The kids have 30 seconds to find a hiding place but in their hiding place they must be able to see the TSS instructor in order to see either the object or number of fingers they're holding up.  The instructor looks for the students (without moving) and when they're finished picking off people the instructor closes his eyes again and the kids pop up from their hiding places in order to move to a closer hiding space.  This process happens a total of 3 times and the closest person to the instructor that can correctly identify the 3 numbers or objects the instructor held up wins.  It's amazing to see how well one can hide in small bushes.  It supposed to simulate a predator creeping up on its prey.  In this video Ben SM wins.  See if you can find him sneaking up right behind the instructor's heels. It's a crazy fun game!

 Working on the trail

 Walking towards our painting spot

 Painting/Drawing

 Breathtaking sky!