Riverview School Launches Adventure Education Curriculum

Project Adventure was founded in 1971 by educators who wanted to bring the tenets of Outward Bound into an educational setting. The teachers began inventing cooperative games and developing team-building initiatives to motivate their community of learners to achieve both academic and social growth through challenging adventure activities and focused reflection.

Riverview School is proud to announce that it has recently invested in the program! Athletic Director, John Benkis, who has been teaching the program at a summer camp for the past 4 summers and who is now leading the program at Riverview says, “My favorite part of Project Adventure is that kids realize that they need to communicate with one another and work together to solve problems. In today’s day and age of electronics, a lot of kids don’t collaborate toward common goals. That is an important life skill.”

Project Adventure supports the social and emotional learning practices that John describes. By creating safe and engaging adventure learning environments, students learn about goal setting, decision making, managing emotions, and engaging in social relationships.

One of the Project Adventure activities that Riverview uses is the “Triangular Tension Traverse.” Six sections of square 8 foot aluminum tubing are set on edge and stabilized by support feet to give participants the ‘wobbly’ feel of walking on a wire cable. (If a student is not ready to try that, a special insert is added; modifying the challenge to allow participants to walk on the 3 inch wide flat edge of the tubing instead). Students hold a hand line, which is attached to the gym wall to circumnavigate the triangle while being spotted by other group members. Student, Reid K., said of the exercise, “I learned to work as a team member and become a better listener. It was hard for me to listen to them (his teammates) before because I knew how I wanted to do it. But after listening I realized that they had some good ideas too. I’m more open to other people’s ideas now.”

John says that the one of his favorite parts of the curriculum is that teams are required to fill out “full value contracts.” This encourages good listening skills, being cooperative, and being patient. He also likes the “challenge by choice” aspect of the program; where students decide for themselves what their comfort levels are. “We had a young woman who was not comfortable trying the challenges. So every day for two weeks, she was a spotter. Then, after seeing how everyone else was approaching the activity and learning from their mistakes and successes, she decided that she wanted to give it a try, and she did great!”

Over the winter, Riverview piloted the program with GROW students and it went very well. So well in fact, that they just launched 5-week spring program for high school students.

John is inspired by the progress he’s seen to date. He said that a lot of trust building is taking place, and that teamwork and cooperation skills have taken off. In fact, he’s enjoying the program so much that he has decided to go back to school and earn his Master of Education in Physical Education with a concentration in Adventure Education. Way to go John! We look forward to many adventures with you over the next several years.