Construction of a new Project Adventure challenge course is set to begin after April vacation and will be completed before the end of the school year. The course will consist of 28 new indoor and outdoor Project adventure elements. Eleven of the elements will go in the Field House, while 17 elements will be constructed on the turf field by Brandeis Road.
The construction is funded by the Carol M. White Physical Education Program Federal Grant, a three-year Wellness grant that Newton received in 2007. The $1 million received from the grant is shared between the elementary, middle and high schools, and about one third of the grant went towards developing the Project Adventure curriculum in the middle schools and high schools.
According to Grant Director Amy Aransky, the Wellness department met with a consultant to help decide which elements will work for best for the high school curriculum, as well as larger class sizes.
“We’ve asked for elements that really speak to the Project Adventure curriculum,” Aransky said.
While the elements will be primarily used by the Project Adventure Wellness classes, the Wellness department will also integrate some of the new activities into freshman and sophomore Wellness courses, according to Wellness director and Project Adventure teacher Alan Rotatori.
Indoor elements will include a 50-foot high rock climbing wall, a traversing wall that will not require a belay system and an apparatus named the centipede, which consists of four wooden beams that students will be able to climb up in order to reach the rafters.
Outside, there will be different stations located around the turf field for additional elements, such as the Mohawk Walk, a series of foot cables between poles that students will have to work together as a team in order to cross.
Because state law requires all challenge courses to be certified or licensed through the state, it is unlikely that the new course will be available for use until September. Any teacher teaching a Project Adventure class will need to receive on-site training.
“[Most of the Wellness teachers] have already been trained off-site, but part of the grant pays for on-site training … A certified facilitator who knows all the equipment and is going to come and teach [the Wellness teachers] how to use our course,” Rotatori said.
Rotatori hopes that the new course will be a great asset to the Project Adventure curriculum and will allow students to take their trust of each other to a new level, as they will need to work together and rely on one another for safety and guidance in order to complete some of the elements.
“The bottom line for [Project Adventure] is that we’re trying to build community,” Rotatori said.
Rotatori insists that although the new elements will add a new angle to the curriculum, the goal of the Project Adventure course will remain the same as in previous years.
Junior James Palmer took the Project Adventure course during the first semester this year and said that it was a great experience even without the new elements.
“I loved [Project Adventure]. The class had a fun atmosphere and everyone got to be friends with each other even if they weren’t friends to begin with. You really become a community,” Palmer said.
Junior Jenny Wong is currently taking the course and agreed with Palmer.
“It’s a really good experience and we do a lot of activities that develop leadership, teamwork and cooperation,” she said.
Rotatori wants to offer all current and previous Project Adventure students a chance to take the new course next year, and both Palmer and Wong expressed interest in doing so.
“I promised the Project Adventure classes this year that I would try to organize a field trip next year for all of them to use the equipment since they didn’t get a chance to use the equipment this year,” Rotatori said.
Aransky, who has also taught Project Adventure classes at South, hopes that the new elements will help create a greater sense of community among students and will provide them new tools with which to challenge themselves.
“Once we have the actual elements, students will be challenging themselves vertically and working in a group to help others be successful as well. I think it’s going to be awesome, and students will learn a lot from it about themselves and about each other,” Aransky said.
