Extreme Journey Summer Camp Registration Open for Adams County
Partnership offers scholarships for kids to experience nation-s most historic region
(Gettysburg, Pennsylvania) - 3/15/2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE …
CONTACT:
John K. Jones
Communications Director, JTHG Partnership
(703) 999-7579
[email protected]
Registration for Extreme Journey – the Journey Through Hallowed Ground’s summer day camp – is now open for Adams County, Pa., middle-school students.
Now in its fourth year, the award-winning Extreme Journey camp uses multimedia, the nation’s most historic region, and local experts to provide middle-school students a chance to experience the nation’s 38th National Heritage Area like never before.
Extreme Journey camp takes students on hiking, biking, and canoeing trips through National Parks and scenic rivers between Gettysburg, Pa., and Monticello, Va. Students spend time with National Park Service Rangers, expert historians, archaeologists, and educators to unlock the stories and lessons of leadership that are demonstrated throughout this region. They visit many of the nation’s most historical heritage sites, assuming the identities of those who actually lived there, and are faced with the same set of facts as they “walk in their boots” to better understand the choices and decisions of those who forged this nation.
The students then record their trials and triumphs and lessons of leadership from the Revolutionary period through the Civil War, using iPods and digital cameras to create a video documentary, or “vodcast,” of “What Leadership Means to Me.” The vodcasts are then shared on the JTHG Partnership website, Facebook, and YouTube, as well as SmartPhone Aps creating a “viral” effect of the campers insight into and appreciation of the nation’s heritage.
“For middle-school kids who like outdoor adventures, working with high-tech gadgets, and who have a passion for learning, the Extreme Journey Through Hallowed Ground is the perfect experience,” said Dr. William Hall, Superintendent of the Gettysburg Area School District. “It’s so much fun that kids won’t even notice they’re learning.”
The non-profit Journey Through Hallowed Ground Partnership has funded a limited number of scholarships to ensure that the cost set by each school system is not a barrier for interested youth. Extreme Journey summer camps also will be held in conjunction with Albemarle County, Va., Loudoun County, Va., and Frederick County, Md., school systems.
The Adams County program runs from July 5- 16, 2010.
“We transform traditional text-book learning into a truly stimulating experience that exists only outside the confines of the classroom,” said Cate Magennis Wyatt, president of the Journey Through Hallowed Ground Partnership. “Coupling the latest technology with creative curriculums, on-site visits, expert accounts, with the region’s breathtaking landscapes, Extreme Journey will leave students riveted by the past and ready to discover the future.”
For more information and to see a video from previous camps, visit www.hallowedground.org/content/view/285/67/
To register for the program, visit the Gettysburg Area Public Schools website at
www.gettysburg.k12.pa.us/news.cfm?story=47985
Educating teachers, students, citizens and visitors is one of the primary objectives of the Journey Through Hallowed Ground Partnership. Since its inception in 2006, this non-profit, four-state, public-private partnership has developed a variety of educational programs, including the award-winning Of the Student, By the Student, For the Student service-learning program, a high-school Summer Enrichment Camp with the University of Virginia, programs for Loudoun County Applied History classes, the semester-long teacher certificate course taught through the Virginia Community College System, teacher workshops, and semester courses for graduate students at the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech.
The JTHG Partnership is a non-profit organization dedicated to raising awareness of the unparalleled history within the swath of land from Monticello to Gettysburg and has successfully created the Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area and has had the Old Carolina Road (Rt. 15/20/231) from Gettysburg, through Maryland, to Monticello designated a National Scenic Byway. For more information, visit www.HallowedGround.org
Parents and teachers can contact John Gallagher with the JTHG Partnership at [email protected] or call (703) 608-5622.
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