Let’s Do This!
I love FIELD TRIPS. I want at least one in every course I facilitate. That is one tricky thing about online learning: how to do field trips? Well, for getting a different perspective on landscape, I propose a distributed Sleep Outdoors Field Trip for Saturday, October 10 (2015). This might be getting a little chilly where some of you are, but you are the heartiest bunch I have ever taught so it should be no problem. In fact, from your introductions, this is not even an uncommon experience.
This sleep out is voluntary, but it is an excellent way to experience a familiar landscape in a new way, or a new landscape altogether. And it is fun. In the past we’ve had parents take their preschoolers for their first backyard sleep out. In the spring, one student took his sleeping bag and dog and slept in the bed of his truck in the driveway, much to his wife’s amusement and his neighbors’ certainty that whatever he’d done, he didn’t even get the sofa for the night.
I usually sleep under the stars on the back patio right next to my bedroom window so I can chat with my wife nestled in her memory foam. Although she did say if I can get a campsite at Ohiopyle State Park, she will come.
The learning objective is to find a new interesting place, or to find your backyard in a new and interesting way.
What are the sounds and smells of the night where you are?
What stars are out? (We’ll all be under the same stars.)
Plan on taking photos, recording sound, or making a journal entry to share.
October 10 is just a couple days away from a new moon, there will be just an eyelash left. SO grab a loved one and start thinking about where to go. For some of you it might be a long weekend, you might even go afield. If any of you are within driving distance of each other, it would be really cool if you could meet up and plan together. Entirely up to you though.
I will start a discussion board so folks can “sign up” and let us know if they are in. We will share our experiences on the discussion board titled, THE BIG SLEEP OUT.
This was what my wake-up call sounded like the last time I slept on the patio:
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