Eighth Grade behind the kiln ruins on Hazel Creek                  Seventh Grade at Wesser Creek trail head.             Fourth and sixth grade at Linville

Staff members Donna Holcombe, Jim Killebrew, and I have begun to develop and implement the MDCS Outdoor Curriculum.  The goal is to take advantage of our proximity to so many wilderness areas by teaching the North Carolina Standard Course of Study in a wilderness setting.  This opens up a large realm of possibilities. Along with regular content, students learn the tenets of minimum impact camping, self-care skills for traveling in the outdoors, and come out of a trip with a sense of accomplishment that simply cannot be obtained in a classroom setting.  

We are carefully constructing the curriculum to provide students with a stair-stepped series of outdoor experiences beginning with an overnight campout at school for fourth graders and culminating with a five day, four night canoeing and backpacking expedition to Hazel Creek in Great Smoky Mountains National Park for our eighth grade.  The Hazel Creek trip will happen in late September or early October every year. 

We have a classroom set of backpacks and all of the necessary group gear. Mr. Killebrew and I are certified Wilderness First Responders which qualifies us to deal with anything from treating and preventing blisters to evacuating a patient with a spinal injury.  At least one of us is on every trip MDCS students take.  As trip leaders, safety is our primary concern and we take every possible preventative measure to ensure student safety.

Participation in these trips is compulsory.  The material covered on these expeditions is integral to the content delivered in the classroom. Missing an outing is more costly than missing a day of school; it is impossible for students to make-up the lessons because they rely the unique setting in which they are taught.

It is a real joy for me to watch teachers deliver curriculum in the wilderness, kids get out and succeed at things that they’ve never done before, and personally, it’s great to spend large blocks of time with our students in an outdoor setting.  I hope that you are as excited about this offering as I am.

Please follow these links at the top of the page to get more information on some of the trips we took this year.  If you have any questions about the program, do not hesitate to call me at the school office.

Sincerely,

Carter Petty, Co-Director