Pecos River Kids Education Curriculum

Pecos River Kids offers educational programs that engage students' minds and hands through real-world investigations that are inquiry-based, interdisciplinary, and supportive of a standards-based curriculum. Environmental and cultural education tie in such topics as history, geography, archeology, art, cultural anthropology, mapping, geology, biology, chemistry, ecology, and meteorology.

Awareness
Hands-on experiences are the best way for students to build understanding of the complex world around them and their place in it. Pecos River Kids programs include studies in energy, minerals, soils, water, aquatic and terrestrial plant life, food webs, weather and climate. These hands-on investigations focus upon humans and their interaction with the natural environment, both past and present. This brings into focus questions about population, technology, renewable and nonrenewable resources, transportation, agriculture, education, communication, government action, and community stewardship.

Knowledge and Skills
Pecos River Kids interdisciplinary educational programs complement and enhance existing school curricula. The Pecos River Kids curriculum involves study in basic ecological principles, the nature of the physical world, identification of plants and animals, and the relationship between humans and the rest of the natural world. Students gain first-hand knowledge of both the physical and social sciences. They also discover how this same information was communicated and taught to children that lived in the region thousands of years earlier and how the people that lived in the region solved the same real-world problems we face today.

Critical Thinking
Pecos River Kids programs provide a mechanism for developing critical thinking skills by (1) providing topics and problems that cut across the school curricula and enhance the integration of knowledge, (2) providing real-world problems that can be studied or simulated at our facility, (3) providing topics and problems that can be adjusted to the developmental needs of the students. Examples of program topics include: The River Runs Wild; Living off the Land; Desert Survival; Home on the Range; Pecos Railways; and Art for Life’s Sake.

Responsible Behavior
By providing youth with meaningful educational and recreational experiences, Pecos River Kids will help them to become a valuable resource in their community. This will be accomplished through the following venues:

• Adventure Challenge activities
  High-level physically challenging activities such as rock-climbing, rappelling, canoeing, and back-packing, will help young people see themselves as capable and powerful.
• Community Building
  Camp environments will create communities where democratic leadership processes can be used to develop a sense of community.
• Service Learning
  Students will be encouraged to design and plan activities that meet real environmental needs, but also appeal to their personal interest. Through these projects, they will gain important teamwork and leadership skills, while also applying their academic skills to tangible, transformative projects.

Contact
Contact Craig Hensley at chensley@shumla.org or call the SHUMLA office at 432-292-4848.