About a week ago classes sixth through eighth went on a field trip to Oregan Illinois to a camp called Lorado Taft. We spent two days and a half there, and we learned a lot about the man who was named after the campus. Lorado Taft was actually a man who grew up in Elmwood Illinois, he was an American sculptor, writer, and educator. People from Chicago came to Lorado Taft because of its beauty. Artists would come to see the wildlife and nature.
On our trip we took four outdoor educational classes, Ecology;Team Building; and Survival. Survival was my favorite. We were led deep into the forest and we rested at a river bank. Our instructor Mr. Hipes had given us a mission. We had to simply build a shelter that would be water proof. We had to pretend we were the early people who had roamed in the forest and a storm would be arriving in forty five minutes. We were divided into five individual groups. Mine was lucky, one of my peers had mentioned they hap spotted clay by the river bank. We used the clay and packed it into the cracks in between the tree branches. We let the clay dry and harden to make it impossible for water to seep into the cracks. When the instructor had told us to stop building he got a bottle and filled it with river water, he poured water on everyone’s shelters to see if they were water proof. Ours had been.
On the first night at our time at Lorado Taft we had played a game in the dark called “The Wolf Pack”. We were gathered in groups and were given ropes. We were filed in a line and the groups had to hold on to the rope. One group equaled one wolf, and all the groups had to find the Alpha Wolf (leader) by listening to the Alpha Wolf’s howl. If we were close to the Alpha we had to respond by howling to show we were close by. The first group to find the Alpha would win. I enjoyed the game but it became boring because the person guiding the group in the front of the rope had led us round’n’round in circles which had got me a bit annoyed. Did my group leader really not realize she was guiding us to nowhere!?
The second night we had started to a bonfire and roasted smores from the outdoor chimney. We also preformed plays in the light provided by the bonfire. We had rehearsed them in a drama class we had that day. We were given cards and we had to answer the questions it had asked on them. Our groups was “Why does the Skunk Smell So Bad?”. We had come up with plays that answered those questions. We acted them out and most of the plays that were preformed had lots of humor in them.
The last day had been so exciting. We played a survival game. We were given head bands which labeled if we were carnivores, herbivores, or omnivores. we had life chips as well, our mission was to eat animals who were lower than us in the food chain. There was no certain amount of animals you had to eat, if someone had tagged you, you were eaten. We had to give the person who tagged us one of our life chips, and our instructor had only given us three life chips maximum. I had been a omnivor, which I could only eat herbivores, not carnivores. I would have been able to in real life but the game required you to eat people lower in your food chain. I had survived at the end of the game, I had hidden beneath a bush with one of my peers to protect myself from predators.
Lorado Taft had been really fun, but when it was time to leave I was so sad. I hated the thought of leaving, it had been the best field trip I had ever taken. I took many pictures to remember the time I spent there. When I arrived at home, my parents were so overwhelmed with stories that I had told them about Lorado Taft. I was so tired I fell asleep after dinner, it was the most accosting trip i had ever taken, but the most incredible experience.
