"Students
are young and they will live their lives. They can't live off of someone else's
experiences. So as you try to prepare them don't look for an answer; try
looking for a reaction.” -Jemique Staker
Every Program Ridgewalker creates is specifically designed and implemented to the needs of the population it is serving. Ridgewalker has over 20 years working with institutions and organizations designing, training and facilitating Experiential and Wilderness programs. Allow Ridgewalker to assist you with your Experiential Programming needs. Just click on the link below to guide you to the service you are looking for.
| CUSTOM TRAINING PROGRAMS |
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| RISK MANAGEMENT, FIELD GUIDE AND TRAINING MANUALS |
CUSTOM TRAINING PROGRAMS –
- Experiential Learning - Ridgewalker is known for taking any subject or idea and turning it into a learning experience. We will train your staff in an alternative way of enhancing their teaching. We know many students these days have a difficult time learning from a book, taking a test, then jumping right into learning something new and comprehending it. We come to you with over twenty years experience in taking what is taught and then turning it into a hands-on experience which allows the student to fully understand and retain the information. Our staff has been working in this field before the title “Experiential Learning” was coined. Not only will the students have the hands-on experience, we will give you the tools to add Adventure Programming to the curriculum. This will enhance the learning experience, while challenging the students physically and stimulating them mentally.
- Wilderness Learning - In teaching wilderness conservation, appreciation, primitive living skills and a variety of wilderness activities, Ridgewalker will also show how to use the wilderness as your classroom. The outdoors has such a therapeutic value which is recognized by practitioners all over the world. We will show you how to use the wilderness as a medium to take the students out of their elements and build them into a single working team with focus and purpose. Then we show how to extract the multitude of metaphors from the wilderness experiences and bridge them over the classroom and to their everyday life. We will give you the tools to use wilderness in any school-based curriculum to be used as learning aids, metaphors, projects and to integrate creative curriculum.
- Adventure Programming - If you are looking for new, refreshing physical yet educational type programs, Ridgewalker has a bottomless bag of alternative activities called adventure programming. What distinguishes our Adventure Programs is that in addition to the conditioning and exercises offered by traditional activities, they promote problem-solving, team-building, trust and communication within each activity. Our staff will not only train your instructors in these activities, our training also includes the proper methods and implementation techniques to facilitate rather than recreate them. We will also show how to transform traditional activities into more productive adventure programs. Ridgewalker will introduce to your staff exciting new skills and techniques. These skills will not only stimulate student participation, but also assist them in lessons of leadership, trust, communication and team-building.
- Natures Very Own - We look at the natural surroundings in your area and create a multi-element course based on the natural resources available. We then take these natural resources and turn them into challenges, create an adventure that encompasses and sequences challenges along a journey. Based on the elements, we can create high and low challenges that are all removable and easily setup leaving no trace or major impact on the land. Ridgewalker will train your staff in the setup and take down, sequencing the adventure so it becomes age and skill appropriate, and most importantly elements are chosen based on the needs of the specific group. We will give you a variety of challenges that your staff will be able to choose the ones appropriate for the group. This way you can bring a group back multiple times and the challenges will always be different. The participants will never know what is in store for them as they do when they go back to a fixed challenge course. Utilizing the natural world for your challenge course allows the participant to gain a greater respect for nature, learn new skills and take away a greater connection between nature and themselves.
RISK MANAGEMENT, FIELD GUIDE AND TRAINING MANUALS –
Ridgewalker has written dozens of training and risk management manuals for organizations that use the outdoors as their medium. We understand with staff turnover, refresher training and legal requirements, programs need to keep a current up-to-date training manual for their staff. The training manuals that we write are specific to your programs and methods of implementing them. We spend the time with your staff on-site to get a thorough understanding of the information, preferred methods and techniques used in the field. We then translate them into a comprehensive user friendly training manual that follows your standards and guidelines. Along with the training and risk management manual, Ridgewalker will provide you with a pocket-size field copy of the risk management section. The staff can keep the legal and safety protocols guide with them while in the field during programs. Here are two examples of Risk Management Manuals:
Example 1 – wilderness based organization
- Safety Philosophy
- Definitions
- General Provisions – rules, procedures and considerations, personnel, maintenance of the plan, and review and analysis.
- Program Hazards – environmental and human factors
- Pre-planning
- Critical Activities
- Critical Equipment
- Emergencies – medical, evacuation, search and emergency notification
- Health Care Plan
- Facilitators Handbook
- Program Safety Plan
- Emergency Plan
- Glossary
- Forms
CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT –
One of Ridgewalker's core strengths is taking a program, whether it is a school based or organizational based program and assisting in development and enhancement their experiential and wilderness curriculums. Ridgewalker has both pre-written experiential lesson plans that meet and exceed standards for school based curriculums as well as written dozens of lesson plans and curriculums for youth based experiential and wilderness based programs.
Ridgewalker has developed over two dozen experiential lesson plans for the 5th through 12th grade level that meet and exceed state educational standards and have been approved by schools that have been placed on state academic probation. Each lesson plan includes materials needed, setup and a step by step outline from the introduction to sample processing questions. Moreover, each lesson plan includes benchmark standards listed out by grade for achievable outcomes. A few examples of the outcome standards are communication, interpretation, expression, situational resolution, strategic planning, engagement and reflection.
Ridgewalker Has also worked with dozens of organizations assisting with developing anywhere from 9 week to 12 month experiential and wilderness curriculums. We first look at the available organizational and local resources including experience of staff, topography of area, available facilities, transportation, time, population served, dosage, funds and deliverable outcomes and requirements. Then, we work with the staff making sure they understand the core elements and the development of the systematic program outline. Ridgewalker has worked with educators and child development psychologists in order to develop a cutting-edge planning model for curriculum development. The curriculum planning model is designed to take all factors into account and develop a challenging yet achievable goal while meeting all requirements and standards along the way. The model also inherently and naturally develops within the participants a whole person that encompasses the intra and inter personal skills while the participants unknowingly recognize that they are in a leadership or prevention based program.
- Experiential / Wilderness Learning - Ridgewalker has over twenty years in the field of Experiential Learning, Wilderness Education and Adventure Programming. In the past, many organizations have asked for our assistance with their programs and projects. Ridgewalker specializes in assisting organizations to develop or enhance their existing Adventure Programs. Our specialty is assisting organizations with the grant writing process with regards to program development and implementation, staff training, program assessments and direction, logistics and the development of training and risk management manuals specific to the program. Every program we create or work with is specifically designed and implemented to the needs of the population it is serving.
- Service Learning - Ridgewalker has worked with classes and trained teachers on how to integrate their curriculum-based learning into a service providing project. We show teachers how to develop a Service Learning Project from classroom curriculum and how to work with the students to develop their own projects. We will give you the tools and teach you the nuts and bolts on presenting, developing and sustaining a project whether for a single day or an entire school year. One difference that makes our Service Learning Models stand out is that within the implementation of the project, we show you how to integrate experiential learning, adventure-based programs and activities. This makes the project both mentally exciting and physically challenging. The use of wilderness activities holds the student's attention throughout the process. These models will give the students a multi-lateral education in a multitude of environments, create physical activities, provide a service for the community, design creative curriculum, as well as create life long memories.
If you are would like more information on the development or enhancing of your all ready existing lesson plans or curriculum, please contact us and we would be more then happy to assist you with your requests.