Students venture outdoors in high school class

Just beyond the football field at Ronald Reagan High School is where you’ll find students gathered around a fire.

“Today, we have cooked hot dogs and we are also cooking s'mores which is nice,” 15-year-old Sophomore Andrew Turner said.

The students are part of the Outdoor Adventure class and during this week’s unit, they learned to cook the old-fashioned way.

“Every campus has an Outdoor Adventure program, so a lot of the kids across our District are getting these activities,” Jill Cupp, the P.E. and Health Department head at Reagan said.

Cupp teaches the Outdoor Adventure program at Reagan. She is also the softball coach.

“It is a popular class, the kids like to take it just because they get to do things they haven’t done before or maybe have little experience with. They really like the cooking unit,” she said.

Coach Cupp said the goal is to teach the student lifetime wellness.

This P.E. class takes hikes and goes mountain biking, learns archery, and learns how to cook around a fire.

Cupp said the class will also climb a rock wall, do a fishing unit, and practice casting and orienteering. They will also learn geocaching and to learn how to use a compass.

Each unit lasts between 1-2 weeks.

“It’s nice to like get outdoors instead of sitting inside all day. It’s nice to kind of have a break from the technology,” Turner said.

The students in the class learn team building.

Many are also making new friends.

“I’ve never experienced anything like this; it’s pretty cool to have extracurricular activities like this,” Turner added.

Coach Cupp said she loves to see her students working together and having fun.

“Orchestra, Band, and ROTC, just kids that might not always mingle together, come together especially in our P.E. setting and we see them cooperate and work together and really form some of those bonds that they might not otherwise have.”

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