Over the course of three summers, Sierra Health Foundation hosted a weeklong summer youth development camp for REACH coalitions at its Grizzly Creek Ranch retreat facilities in Portola, California. Located 130 miles east of Sacramento, Grizzly Creek Ranch is set in the mountains of Plumas County and encompasses 1,500 acres of forests, streams and…

An external evaluation documented what occurred in an inaugural summer camp to teach high school students how to preserve religious freedom by learning about and acting on the history and current state of church-state separation and other first amendment issues. Camp designers hoped to promote religious diversity values and civic engagement in…

Young people representing five vocational groups attended a four-day leadership seminar in Ohio. (MS)

Provides camp directors with ideas for building and maintaining a sense of community among their staff, including (1) establishing a vision statement; (2) conducting team-building activities during precamp training; (3) establishing a "full value-no discount" policy that encourages caring behaviors; and (4) reinforcing a sense of…

In this article, the authors describe a leadership experience that allows hard of hearing students to learn from the diverse identities of their peers. They describe a Youth Leadership Retreat for mainstream students that includes motivational speeches, adventure learning, ropes courses, team building activities, reflective and small group…

Describes how camp counselors can foster camaraderie among campers through participative decision making, name games, listening, adventure courses, storytelling, spending time in nature, decorating cabins, avoiding favoritism, setting rules, admitting faults, setting group goals, and praising sincere efforts. (TD)

School camping began with three movements in American society: children's camping, which has been traced back as far as 1823; the Nature Study Movement, which is thought to have begun as early as 1839; and the holistic "new education." In 1940, L. B. Sharp opened National Camp in New Jersey and Julian W. Smith initiated the Clear Lake…

The article describes Potentials Unlimited, a summer camp program for gifted intermediate grade students in Cincinnati, Ohio. Aspects covered include priorities in selecting curricular activities and some of the camp activities themselves. (DLS)

Although summer camps can provide opportunities for personal growth, self-worth, and education for living, camp programming changes are necessary because today's youth have had experiences which reduce the novelty of camping. Summer camps can be used to provide the missing rite of passage from youth to adulthood and to create real contexts and…

One of the main emphases of the Tri-District Outdoor Education Project, funded under Title III of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, was the development of a resident outdoor education program for both elementary and secondary students. This report includes the various procedural phases of their program development such as facility…

Describes Camp Atwater (North Brookfield, Massachusetts), a summer residential camp founded in 1921 to assist African-American children in developing leadership, character, citizenship, interpersonal communication skills, personal and educational confidence, environmental awareness, physical fitness, and cultural awareness. Describes Camp…

For camps to be successful, management should empower camp staff to be heroes (leaders). This is based on three rules: campers look for heroes; heroes build successful camps; and successful directors build heroes. Being a hero implies being the best one can be and always attempting to improve the example communicated to others. (LP)

Although there were camps for children as early as 1861, it was not until the post-depression era that professional educators gave serious consideration to the educational values of camping. By the late thirties school camping was beginning to find a foothold in various sections of the country and during the forties this movement continued to…

Based on structured interviews with Interlocken students, staff, parents, and alumni, this book presents a historical account of the international coeducational camp, Interlocken, founded in 1961, and its practice and philosophy of experiential education. Section 1 explains the innovative summer-camp/youth-travel mission of Interlocken and its…

A research study on the future of organized camping investigated future factors which may affect leadership of camping programs in Wisconsin and throughout the country. Objectives were to: identify 50 experts on organized camping who would participate in a 3-round Delphi study on the future of camping; generate consensus among the experts…