We had great success this year with our Amherst College FOOT Program! A whole new group of first-year students have gone through this immersive 3-day experience, where they get to know each other, take part in thought provoking activities, receive guidance from Student Leaders about college life at Amherst College, and enjoy exciting local outdoor adventures. Some groups go on a 3-day overnight trip, and some venture out on day programs, returning to the college to do activities in the evening with their team, but everyone involved takes part in thought provoking and community building activities that always open the door to new conversations and new friendships.

Among these activities are the Mind Map, Letter to Self, and Values Clarification. Every year before FOOT starts, upperclass-students at Amherst College apply to be Student Leaders and they learn how to facilitate these activities from AIAO Staff, and they work on a team with one or two of our staff to deliver these activities in the field, and guide their group through the entire FOOT experience. Much of the time, the students who apply to be Student leaders were previous first-year students who took part in the FOOT program. Time and again the chance to be a Student Leader proves to be a wonderful leadership development opportunity for students.

One of the wonderful aspects of these trips is that new students have an opportunity to go through these activities in a new and beautiful natural environment that always seems to enhance introspection and self discovery.

Have a great year Amherst College students! We’re looking forward to working with you in the coming years to create fantastic new experiences for future students.

This Summer we crafted a new activity that we’ve grown quite fond of, called Pacific Voyage. We used this activity with a handful of clients, including Poly Prep Country Day School in Brooklyn, International School of Boston, Groton School, and Acera School. This activity can be done in a few ways, but we often use it as an extension of our GPS Scavenger Hunt.

We provide a scenario to each group of 6-12 participants, wherein their team is getting ready to depart on a sailing trip across the Pacific Ocean. In order to sail across the ocean, they need to find resources that might come in handy during their sailing trip by going on the GPS Scavenger Hunt. By using the GPS Unit to find hidden riddles and solve them, they earn points, which they use to acquire resource cards. They search for riddles until they acquire all 25 resources and then they’re off on their sailing adventure.

However, shortly after they “set sail” their trip goes awry and they find themselves in trouble, stranded in the Pacific Ocean on a life raft. While the groups lose many of their resources, they are left with a specific selection of items and they are given the initiative to work as a team to figure out how they would need to prioritize these items, in order of importance, in order to survive.

This activity is great fun and it adds a new dimension to our GPS Scavenger Hunt. While coopetition is always fun for participants when we use our original design for the Scavenger Hunt, this new format allows for a more group tailored experience, where their goal isn’t related to the progress of the other groups. This culminating teambuilding initiative spurs in-depth conversation and the need to problem solve as a group – not to mention that everyone learns a thing or two!

As we wind down for the winter, we look forward to more Pacific Voyage and all of our activities next season.

In early Fall, we led a program with Not Ready for Bedtime Players, a theater troupe based out of UMass Amherst. This group is “an award-winning peer sexuality education troupe” whose “lively, entertaining skits address health issues impacting the university community, including: healthy sexuality, gender, relationships, sexually transmitted infections, GLBTQ issues, violence prevention, substance use and much more!” They strive to “educate others to think critically about sexuality, encourage fellow students to make safer decisions and laugh.”

https://www.umass.edu/studentlife/health-safety/chp/not-ready-bedtime-players

Our program with them took place in the student union building at Umass, where the small group of about 13 people who were all new to the theater troupe spent the day solving problems together. It was an opportunity for them to take part in a collaborative teambuilding adventure, and it was all based in a class room and in a hallway outside the classroom.

They did a three hour progression of activities that culminated with an initiative, called bullring, that took them from the classroom out into the hallway and back into another classroom

Early on in this progression, we took the group through a leadership continuum activity, where we had them plot themselves within 4 quadrants of leadership preferences/strengths. This helps each individual find out who they are in terms of the context of their leadership within the group. During the activities that they accomplished throughout the day, they were able to better understand how they brought their own personal leadership strengths to the challenges – and this gave them a context through which they could analyze the culminating activity.

They were posed with the initiative of completing the Bull Ring Challenge in their classroom and out into the hall. In this challenge, each person holds the end of one of many strings that are a attached to a ring, and in that ring we place a rubber ball that they need to keep balanced on the ring without dropping it. Once they lift the ring up off the ground, they need to navigate through the obstacles around them to transport the ring to it’send destination. We challenged this group to transport the ball out of the class room, into the hallways, and back into the classroom through a different door.

One of the fun aspects of doing this challenge indoors was that they needed to figure out how tomake their way out of the classroom

The narrow passage through the doorways presented a unique challenge for them, and they came up with unique solutions.

Together, they managed to get the entire apparatus into the hallway.

And they made their way back into the classroom.

Now on the homestretch, they carefully lowered the ball down towards the cone – the ball’s end destination. This process is deceptively difficult.

And in the end, they achieved success!

The group was very high energy and fun to work with. There was a real sense of inspired, altruistic participation – they seemed very dedicated to being there and working as a team. It was clear that this group has a strong desire to serve the community and the people who the troupe is getting their messages out to. Best of luck, Not Ready for Bedtime Players!

Recently, members of the AIAO team had the good fortune of reconnecting with faculty from Holyoke Community College (HCC) and their current students for an annual paddle and discussion on the Swift River in Belchertown. It was a beautiful late-summer day with calm waters, laughter, and good conversation.

For the last 17 years, AIAO has taken HCC sustainability students paddling on the Swift, getting them out of the classroom and into nature to discuss topics related to the theme of sustainability. Topics this year included sustainability itself, the local suite of wildlife and the natural history of the area, the history and impacts of the Quabbin Reservoir, interdisciplinary learning, and the Leave No Trace ethic.

The students that took part in this program are studying sustainability as a part of HCC’s Sustainability Studies program, which promotes ecological literacy, knowledge, and responsibility – all things that grow in importance more and more these days. Though the majority of them had never paddled a canoe or kayak before, they were all naturals, and our travels up and down the river were relaxed and rejuvenating.

As more leaves fall, the mercury drops, and the woodstoves are lit, we’ll be thinking of our day on the Swift and looking forward to next year. Good luck, students!

https://www.hcc.edu/courses-and-programs/academic-divisions/sem/sustainability-studies

If the image above looks familiar to you and you can’t figure out why, look no further than our homepage! We thought that this was a fitting way to design the logo for this year’s FOOT Program shirts! It will be appearing on the back of the Amherst College t-shirts that new students will be wearing as they venture off on their FOOT trips during their college orientation.

We’ve been running the FOOT program with Amherst College for many years now. These First-Year Outdoor Orientation Trips help build a strong foundation of community and self awareness for first year students at Amherst College. We take students on a handful of different trips, including 3-day overnight expeditions and medleys that consist of several day trips. We also work together on a team with student leaders who are upperclassman at Amherst College. We help them out by showing them some tools-of-the-trade, but these enthusiastic student leaders always take ownership of their role as a trip leader and as someone who can help new students become acquainted with the ins and outs of college life. A lot of the time these student leaders were on FOOT trips at the beginning of their first year!

The following are the expeditions that will be going out this year, and a few photos from past year’s trips.

Advanced Backpacking: Students make rich memories with one another as they summit peaks, pitch tents each evening, gather firewood, cook meals, pack backpacks, filter water, share stories around the fire, make s’mores and play cards beneath the stars. They hike high along the Appalachian Trail following the scenic Taconic Range in Mount Washington State Forest.

Canoeing: Students get out on the water for a canoe expedition, navigating the scenic flatwaters of the Connecticut River that wind through gorges and farmlands in Vermont and Massachusetts. Participants are entirely self-sufficient, packing their gear in the canoes and camping in picturesque campsites along the river banks. With plenty of opportunities to get wet, play river games, and connect with canoeing partners, this is always an unforgettable trip.

Eco-Service Project: Students enjoy the wonder of the outdoors while contributing in a way that will impact others’ ability to share that experience for years to come. Students make memories and take pride in a legacy with their peers through the contributions that they make together.

Rock-Climbing: Rock climbing and rappelling is a sport that challenges one’s own perceived physical and mental limits and demonstrates in real-time their ability, tenacity and resilience. The locations that students visit offer a variety of routes that meet any ability – beginner to advanced. They spend time in purposeful and supportive communication with their group members as they belay new friends and scale the walls above.

We also have 7 medley trips going out, where students will spend each day of FOOT doing a different activity. The variety of activities we do in the medley trips include Hiking, Kayaking, Canoeing, Primitive Living Skills, Eco-Service.

One of the beautiful outcomes of FOOT for us here at AIAO is that we frequently hear about students who meet on their FOOT trips and cultivate relationships that turn into long lasting friendships that they keep throughout their college career. We are very excited to run another round of transformational FOOT trips this year, and can’t wait to see how these new students will rise to the occasion – they always do!