Children’s Grand Adventure:
The power of potential through the power of place

by Sami Wolniakowski
Southern Oregon University Graduate Student

In order to heal from hardship, for centuries people resorted to nature. The calm and beauty found in the outdoors instills an everlasting joy. In the pristine wilderness of the Jackson Hole Valley, a non-profit organization called Children’s Grand Adventure (CGA) takes this practice and adds another key component called Place-Based Education through their cooperation with Teton Science School. The model that CGA has developed is an innovative program that other organizations would benefit from. CGA is also looking for new partnerships that have a similar mission.

CGA gives cancer survivors the opportunity to experience the beauty of life within Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. Over the course of a week, students experience America’s first national park in this grand adventure. Chaperones who participated as students in years past accompany current students, giving them role models to help support their healing process. A typical group consists of four chaperones, nine students and three instructors. This offers the ability to build a tight knit community. Emma Hereford is a chaperone who has been a mentor for 5 years. Emma stated:

For months, years, or maybe even a lifetime patients’ lives have been defined by frequent hospital visits, the grueling demands of treatments, pain, psychological damage, and lack of school. Due to these unfortunate circumstances each child’s view on the outside world is nothing but a small glimpse to what it actually is or what it has to offer. For the first time in years, or in some cases ever, survivors finally get to experience travel, environmental education, and develop lifelong friendships for an entire week in one of the most beautiful places in the world.

CGA was started by Stacey C. Kayem in 2008. She believes that, “The more novel the environment, the more students realize within themselves their own nature and capacity to conquer.” In Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks students get to hike in Teton Mountains, kayak in glacial lakes, watch apex predators in the wild, and view thermal features in Yellowstone. Every day students are challenged both physically and mentally in a way they never have been before. Stacey states that CGA gives students “the opportunity . . . to join hands with the nature that nearly took them” so that they can “walk forward together into boundless horizons of strength and confident human prosperity.”

Teton Science School provides field instructors to CGA who are experts of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE). Instructors get to use a Place-Based Education approach to teach students about all that the GYE has to offer. Place Based Education, a pedagogy that uses the power of place to teach students an approach that is learner centered, incorporates design thinking, is interdisciplinary, and uses the community as the classroom. The vice president of field education, Joe Petrick, states:

During CGA young people benefit from immersion in nature, connections to peers and a sense of empowerment and self-reliance. All of these outcomes are achieved through Place-Based Education (PBE), an approach to education that empowers the learner to explore their world, understand their world and change their world for the better. CGA uses PBE to build an intentional community of leaders who are empowered to harness community resources to support themselves and others.

CGA gives students the ability to come together and make each other stronger, in a bond that will last a lifetime. Stacey Kayem recently recalled the story of a student who was bound to leg braces because his muscles were atrophied. His braces, for the first time, were taken off three months before the program. Unsure and questioning his confidence on day one, he faced the challenge and proceeded to lead the hike for seven days. The pure freedom found in the power of his untapped physical strength was simply waiting to be freed. This student motivated everyone in their field group to persevere through hardships, just by taking one step at a time.

In the future CGA is looking to expand to more hospitals, and use new locations to teach place-based education. Currently, CGA partners with Texas Children’s Hospital, but wishes to establish more partnerships. After reaching over 100 students since 2008, they want to continue the legacy of offering opportunities for students to seek their untapped potential, through the power of place.

Samantha Wolniakowski recently completed her Masters Degree at Southern Oregon University, where she was a graduate assistant in the MS Environmental Education program.