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PRESCOTT COLLEGE RECEIVES $25K
TO BRING OUTDOOR EDUCATION TO LOW-INCOME YOUTH
Prescott - Laura Plaut, a Prescott College Adventure Education faculty,
has received a $25,000 Youth in Wilderness Project grant from the Sierra
Club Foundation.
Through the Youth in Wilderness Project, the Sierra Club seeks to expand
opportunities for low-income youth to experience the wilderness and nature
first-hand.
Plaut’s grant will support an outreach program between Prescott College
students and urban high school groups. Under the direction of Prescott College
staff, undergraduate students will lead outdoor experiences for high school
students from Mesa Vista High School in Mesa and Central High School in Phoenix.
Outings will take place on public lands around Prescott and in the Superstition
Mountains east of Phoenix. Program curriculum will address issues of public
land use and management, and activities include backpacking, rock-climbing,
team-building games and initiatives, and written and artistic journal assignments.
“Although Prescott College has worked with external groups, our ability
to provide this level of service to low-income youth is something that would
not be possible for us without funding from the Sierra Club,” Plaut
explained. “We anticipate this year as the pilot year, and hope not
only to maintain but also to expand this project in the future.”
Plaut sees this not only as an opportunity to provide youth with outdoor
environmental and adventure based educational experiences, but a way for
Prescott College students, many of whom are in training to become teachers,
to work with and learn from youth who live in low-income, urban environments.
“The benefits of this project will be multiplied each year as these
college students begin applying what they have learned about working with
low-income youth in their post-college teaching jobs,” Plaut said. “High
school years are pivotal for all young people. These are years during which
youth either see their choices and opportunities broadening or see them narrowing.
For youth living in low-income environments in particular, choices outside
the scope of their immediate neighborhood experience are not always readily
apparent. Our aim is to provide youth with experiences that will allow them
to expand their sense of the possible as well as their sense of connection
to and love for the natural world.”
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