Check out more images from the event at the Teton Science Schools Smug Mug site.

Originally planned for June, construction has been delayed until August because of Teton County permitting challenges (a 60 day review period which we thought we could avoid). Lower Valley Energy has graciously agreed to donate pole setting services. The poles will be arriving soon and will be stored until August when construction begins.

Looking ahead, the SeeYourImpact online giving campaign site will close as of this Friday, May 10th. Please visit the Doug Walker Challenge Course Facebook page to stay connected, up to date and share stories. Plans are in the works for a 20 year celebration of Doug’s life this fall. Please save the date for the weekend of September 20-22 here in Jackson Hole for a workday on the challenge course, celebratory dinner to honor Doug’s life and ribbon cutting ceremony. More information coming soon via mail and Facebook.

Thank you again to all of you who have helped to honor and support Doug Walker’s dream. We hope to see many of you this fall in Jackson Hole for the ribbon cutting at the new Doug Walker Challenge Course!

Thank you to all of you for your amazing gifts of support for the Challenge Course. Teton Science Schools is excited to host a Doug Walker Challenge Course Community page on Facebook as a place for friends and family of Doug, as well as interested community members to share photos and stories and create a ‘digital scrapbook’ of the past, present and future of the Doug Walker Challenge Course. Please visit the page and add images, narratives or connect with others.

The page will also serve a place to keep people connected as the building project begins and to document the phases of construction and use of the course over time. Join us on Facebook and connect with other friends of Doug’s. Thank you again for helping to make Doug’s dreams into reality.

In addition to the challenge course structure on the Jackson Campus of Teton Science Schools, the Doug Walker Challenge Course will have far reaching impacts. The curriculum and plans from partnering organization, Project Adventure, will include outreach challenge ‘packs’ (or mobile teaching kits) and components that will be used at our Kelly Campus, Teton Valley Community School Campus in Victor, ID, and within the community for onsite trainings and team building with students of all ages.

These kits include “classic and unique props and equipment for presenting over 70 cooperative games and more than a dozen of PA’s most popular group problem-solving activities. Suitable for a broad range of ages, abilities, and audiences this bag is an excellent resource for introducing adventure learning into any curriculum or program. Activities range from icebreakers to closure activities, from active to quiet games. Many games and props have infinite variations and, with a dose of creativity, can be used over and over in different ways.”

There has been a lot of exciting movement on the Doug Walker Challenge Course campaign! Nearly $9,000 have come in within the past 10 days! Thank you to all of you who are helping us to get closer to our $25,000 See You Impact campaign goal. The momentum is building and we are 75% of the way there, let’s keep it going!

Working concurrently with our contacts at Project Adventure and our Properties Director here at Teton Science Schools, we plan to break ground in May on the low elements portion of the course as well as move the cabin from its previous location at Jackson Hole High School to the Jackson Campus of TSS. Construction will continue through the spring with the goal of making the low elements accessible to summer participants by late June. With adequate funding and energy, construction of the high elements will begin this summer.

Thank you all for your support!

Thank you so much for supporting Teton Science Schools (TSS) and the Doug Walker Challenge Course Campaign. They have received a design and estimate from Project Adventure for the course, which will be built on the Jackson, Wyoming campus of the organization. If you haven’t seen a sketch of the proposal, go to http://tss.seeyourimpact.org/ and click on the thumbnail on the right side of the page. You will see some of the interesting names of the various elements: Whale Watch, Spiders Web, Flying Squirrel and Centipede — names seemingly inspired by nature!

The Doug Walker Memorial Mohawk Walk will use the materials from the original Teton High School Course, including Multivine Traverse, Multiswing, Pirates Crossing, Two Line Bridge, Wild Woosey, Triangle Tension Traverse and Single Line Tension Traverse.

Thank you, Lucinda and Mary, for helping make this possible. Your donation in Doug’s memory helps TSS engage students on a new level.

Since launching this campaign, thanks to your hard work, we have raised over $9,500 toward our $25,000 match. We have a design and estimate from Project Adventure and we are well on our way to towards realizing our goal. Below is a letter from the program coordinator of Teton Science School’s (TSS) Jackson Campus. We will be sending this to various teachers, chaperones, organizations and community members interested in helping us elevate our field education experience at Teton Science Schools.

“The Field Education team at Teton Science Schools is excited to honor Doug Walker’s legacy through the use of the new Doug Walker Challenge Course. The course will give thousands of youth, adults and families locally, across Wyoming, throughout the country and around the world the opportunity to work with professional educators building self-confidence, teamwork and leadership skills. Your donation will have a direct impact on all or our participants including children who have survived cancer, young adults overcoming anxiety, military families reconnecting after deployment and school children who will be the next generation of community leaders. Please contribute to the Doug Walker Challenge Course and join me by sharing this link with friends.
Sincerely,
Joe and the Teton Science Schools Field Education Team”

Thank you Mary, Carole, Arthur, Kari, Steven and Mary for helping TSS create such an amazing tool for the country.

Thank you all for donating to the Graduate Program Scholarship campaign. Your donation welcomes Charlie into the Teton Science Schools’ family. He will continue growing as an educator because of your generosity.

In the past half-decade, Charlie has found himself in odd situations, such as wandering through the east Australian bush searching for bachelor pads of the male satin bowerbird, trying to teach 5-year-olds how to moonwalk for a water-cycle-themed rewritten Michael Jackson song performance, and being mistaken for a bear by tourists while researching grasshoppers at the National Bison Range. He just finished up a year of service in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest in the Portland, OR area, where he worked for an environmental nonprofit leading service-learning trips with students in stream and wetland restoration.

In his letter of intent, he said:

“From an early age, through boy scouts and family camping trips I loved exploring the natural world. This continued through my college career when I graduated with a B.S. degree in Environmental Sciences from the University of Notre Dame. I soon after found a job in environmental education teaching young children at an Audubon sanctuary summer camp outside of San Francisco. I unexpectedly found that not only did I love what I was doing, but I was told that I was good at it. Being able to help children find a respect and wonder for the life all around them became a passion of mine. Since then, I have worked as a naturalist at a residential outdoor education center and now I am leading high school students in stream restoration service learning. Every day of being out in the field with students has been a joy and I am constantly reminded that environmental education is something I would like to continue to do.”

Your donation will relieve some of the financial pressure of Charlie’s Graduate Program expenses. He is extremely grateful and humbled by your generosity, especially knowing that you are all alumni of the program working together to offer him this scholarship.

Allie first came to the Teton Science Schools for a two-week long Rocky Mountain Ecology field studies course at the Kelly Campus in June 2010. Since then, she has graduated from Rhodes College with a B.S. in Biology and a minor in Environmental Science. This summer Allie returned to TSS as an AmeriCorps Field Education Intern and she hopes to further her education in the Graduate Program.

The faculty that worked with her this summer say she is smart, has a great rapport with kids, takes initiative and is very sweet. In her letter of intent, she said:

“After having completed more than half of my internship at TSS as an AmeriCorps Summer Field Education intern, I have furthered my confidence in wanting to impart the knowledge of science on those around me. Like most places, my home (New Orleans) is one that has a number of its own environmental and community problems. Although it is not the majestic landscape of Jackson Hole, I intend on being an integral part of the move to make it a more environmentally-conscious and friendly city through place-based education and community involvement. What I have learned through my own experience as a child, as well as through my AmeriCorps program, is that the seeds of a sense of responsibility of the environment around you are truly planted when one is young. However, involvement in a community has the great potential to help foster these seeds as well.”

Your donation will relieve some of the financial pressure of Allie’s Graduate Program expenses. She is extremely grateful and humbled by your generosity, especially knowing that you are all alumni of the program working together to offer her this scholarship.

Carlos was a lead instructor for Ecology Project International before he came to the graduate program. Because of his leadership and strong teaching abilities he was given a substantial scholarship from a donor to attend the Teton Science Schools in hopes that he would return to continue to educate his native people of Costa Rica around the principles of Place-based Education and Environmental Science and Ecology.