G-CAMP: PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS AT WYLIE HIGH SCHOOL

Several summers ago I was fortunate enough to be chosen to attend G-camp. At the time I was a relatively new teacher, just finishing my second year as a high school science teacher. The adventure of G-camp greatly increased my personal knowledge of geology and provided me with many stories, examples and teaching materials that I have used in the years since. Since I teach environmental science and AP environmental science, both senior level classes, I have found that I mostly use many of the 600 or so pictures that I took on the trip. I have worked them into several PowerPoints that I use with my students every year on subjects like the National Parks, biomes, and succession. I have an entire series of pictures of Canyon Lake Gorge that I always show to my students as it is such a good example of primary succession. I tell my students the story of how the gorge was formed and show them the pictures of the regrowth of plant life within the gorge. I have also used a number of our G-camp pictures in teaching my students about different biomes, as we visited a number of different types of environments. I always show them my pictures from the alpine tundra as well as the high desert in Colorado and am able to describe to them what it was like to be there. One of my favorite subjects to discuss with my students is the National Parks. Most of my students tend to stay in our little community and very few have actually visited a national park. Since my students are graduating seniors I am glad that I have the opportunity to introduce the National Park system to my students before they move on in life. I hope that I can inspire them to someday visit some of the Parks. During G-camp we visited several National Parks and Monuments which I share with my students.

Another way that I share my experience with my students is that I use some of my best pictures from G-camp as background on my presentation computer desktop as a conversation starter. The desktop of that computer is visible to the entire class most days and inevitably the students ask about it which gives me an opportunity to share more with my students. I also have a lot of rocks collected during G-camp laying around my classroom allowing students to handle them and ask about them. I like telling my students about the places I visit in hopes that they will think about traveling outside of our community at some point in their future.