Highlights from the elective schedule


Our elective period has ended and we are back to our core class schedule. A few highlights from our elective classes:

Martial Arts

We've been going strong in our fourth week of martial arts. Thus far, students have been practicing the forms of punching, several types of kicks, aikido, and jiujitsu. We've emphasized jiujitsu the past two weeks and have done a lot of rolling around on the mat.

I'm also keeping a Wednesday evening practice that is open to the students or community who want to attend (from 4:00PM -5:00PM).

I planned on having some pictures to provide, but will have to wait till our next session.

 Outdoor Leadership

This last week we've focused on navigation, winter clothing, shelter building, animal sign, and starting fires in winter. Despite some troubles with students dressing for the weather, we did spend a lot of time outside. We built two survival shelters out in the woods, which the two groups took in different ways: the Taj Mahal, with space for everybody plus some, and the Tiny Hut, with a warm covering of moss but only room for three (barely). We also experimented with tarp shelter designs.

Timothy Lorenzini from Tetlin Wildlife Refuge also came in to discuss GPS navigation and using topographic maps. After an "A to B" topographic map challenge, we went outside and hid an orange beacon in the woods. A student successfully led us back to the spot using the GPS. Thanks Tim for coming in!

We fit in a hike on the Lost Lake Trail (near Tanacross), and were met with fresh snow and new tracks.

Looking for animal tracks

Kaleb and Micah on the Lost Lake Trail
On Thursday, despite having many students gone for basketball, we managed to get out and do some winter fire building. After collecting supplies, we built a fire and boiled water using a white gas stove, and were toasty warm drinking hot chocolate by our fire. See some pictures below. More next week!


Gabriel, Vincent, Kameron, and Riley display their track drawings

Gabriel found a woodpecker nest for tinder



Spruce branches and dead aspen - great fire materials
Getting the base so the fire is off the snow



Fire!



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