DURANGO, COLO. — Educators across the Four Corners region are heading back to their schools after being in a different kind of classroom – the San Juan River.

For five days, they were on the water for the inaugural run of a teacher program at Fort Lewis College. Nine educators across five districts – in New Mexico and Colorado – participated.

Lorien Chambers Schuldt is an associate professor and the chair of Teacher Education Department at Fort Lewis College. She said it gives educators the chance to take advantage of the cultural richness and all of the geographical richness here.

The college’s School of Education and the Fort Lewis On the Water (FLOW) program made this trip possible. They also received financial support from elsewhere, like the Durango Industrial Development Foundation.

“A 5-day rafting trip is a pretty phenomenal deal and the graduate School of Education was also able to give partial scholarships to some students to bring that cost down even further and that also came with graduate credit,” Schuldt said.

Eli Shostack was the pilot teacher for the program. Not only did Shostack show teachers how to have a class outside but he said he also showed them how to use the natural environment to leverage meaning and outcomes.

“The teachers came from different districts, different grades and different subjects. But the one thing that we also fortunately have in common is the amazing landscape and these beautiful places,” Shostack said.

Shostack adds beautiful places like San Juan River allow them to focus on topics like:

Risk management

“So many times, I think we think about physical safety when it comes to managing risks in the outdoors. But emotional safety. Making people feel like they can take risks with each other in terms of their learning and trying new things.”

Mindfulness

“Mindfulness is a great way to sort of untangle what we bring to an environment, as well as what’s already there.”

Place-based learning

“Understanding how to have students identify the role of these places in their lives, like what is it about the sounds of my schoolyard or the smell of fall, right? We’re getting ready for back to school. That smell, how does that influence your experience?”

And so much more.

Daniel Burns is a physics teacher at Piedra Vista and is getting his Masters at FLC. Burns said this trip did a lot more than show him what to bring back to the classroom.

“I’ve been teaching for eight years, and kind of stagnated. And I was kind of just going through the motions. I was kind of excited because I was like, ‘yeah this is gonna give me a new way to look at the way that I run my classroom, a new way to look at how I teach the things that I teach.’ And it did a great job of that,” Burns said.

He does have a few new tricks that he will be taking back with him.

“Especially with physicals is great cause a lot of it is hands-on. I can do it outdoors and doing things outdoors actually helps with a lot of things,” Burns said.

After everything he learned he has a recommendation to all the educators out there.

“I would recommend that every teacher do this it was a cool experience. It’s a great way to go into it with the learning mindset that we’re all trying to get our kids to have. Any teacher can take something valuable out of this. But I think it was a phenomenal experience. If they offer it again, I will do it in a heartbeat,” Burns said.

Click here for more on the Adventure Education Department outdoor education program.