Summer Trip to Arizona

Before I had started teaching, I did an internship with the National Park Service as a bio technician for Tuzigoot, Montezuma Castle and Montezuma National Monuments, about an hour North of Phoenix, AZ. During that 6 month internship, I familiarized myself with the local ecology which I used in my work and in working with local high schools in educational programs. Having lived there, I learned the area fairly quickly, figuring out where the best camping spots and hiking was in the area. Last year, my coworker and I decided to use this “insider scoop” to design a trip to Arizona for our students.

            The idea for the trip came from a frustration shared between us that our school offered many trips to Europe and Asia, but students manage to graduate from our school having never seen any of the major Naitonal Parks West of the Mississippi River. Last summer, he and I took a trip out to scout out the trip. We started in the Grand Canyon, hiked a few different trails for three days and then headed down to Flagstaff, AZ to camp in a national forest where we visited Sunset Crater and Walnut Canyon National Monument. In the last days, we visited Sedona and camped next to the three monuments where I lived.

            We learned a number of things on that trip that made me very glad that we did the first trip without students. First, we decided that we will do the trip in reverse. This is because I overexerted myself in the first day and between the dry climate and the altitude, got hit with altitude sickness very badly on day two. Starting the trip low and going high is the logical choice to do this. To make a long story short, we were able to essentially let the trip plan itself by being in the area for seven days. It was hard work and much less of a vacation that our colleagues joked that it was. We will be bringing at total of ten people, including me and my colleague this June. There will be three teachers total with seven students. The faculty going on the trip were chosen to allow for the most educationally diverse experience possible. I will focus on the local american and ecology of each biome we will be hiking through. My coworker, a chemistry teacher, has a vast knowledge of western American Geology, having grown up in Santa Fe. The third teacher is a PhD candidate for Central American Studies and knows a significant amount about the migration of the Hopi tribe up through the American Deserts.

            This combination gives the students one of the best experiential and interdisciplinary experiences that we can offer at our school. In the future, we plan on offering this trip for academic credit, where the students will pick a presentation topic to teach during one of the nights at the campsites. This will allow for the students to take a more active role in learning about the area they are travelling to. To say I am excited about this trip is an understatement. I have even been asked by the administration if we would consider doing a Faculty and Admin trip next summer!

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