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This year we're trying something new. We will no longer be printing a
newsletter. Instead, you will find all the latest news about the
McCall Outdoor Science School on this web page, our MOSS blog, updated
monthly. Check it out!
Click here to subscribe by
email.
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WILDERNESS MEDICINE COMES TO MOSS
by Todd Pederson
Wilderness First Responder student, Price Valley
Hellirappellers
I’m not going to lie, the scene was grim. A hot air balloon expedition
had crash-landed outside of Big Creek in the Frank Church River of No
Return Wilderness area, and five people were reported to be seriously
injured. We arrived on scene to find injuries ranging from a femur
fracture to a stick impaled in an arm. Like I said, it was grim, but
luckily we had some training…
And luckily, this was just a simulated scenario, part of a Wilderness
First Responder course offered at MOSS by the Wilderness Medicine
Institute of the National Outdoor Leadership School. I’m taking the
course to recertify and to update my skills. The course is being
taught by locals Nate and Joy. Nate is an experienced EMT and swift
water rescue technician, and has traveled all over the world teaching
kayaking and first aid. Joy is currently a ski patroller. Both
instructors are incredibly knowledgeable and their personal experience
makes the course come to life.
The “Wilderness context” for medical purposes is defined as anywhere
that is more than one hour from definitive care and advanced life
support. For those of us who live, work and recreate in the heart of
Idaho, we can often find ourselves more than one hour from EMS,
hospitals, and even cell phone service. This course is designed to
train people how to deal with medical situations in these remote
settings.
In the beginning we covered basic patient assessment – how to stay safe
as a rescuer, how to determine if your patient has immediate life
threatening conditions, how to take precautions in case the patient has
a spinal injury, and a system for getting information that might help us
to determine what injuries or illness our patient is dealing with.
After getting comfortable with basic patient assessment, we learned how
to deal with some common injuries and illnesses seen in the backcountry.
To be honest, I get pretty excited about the idea of building a
“MacGyver” style traction splint in the backcountry, but only in
theory. After dealing with a “patient” who was screaming his head off
for an hour while we built a traction splint to stabilize his “broken
femur”, strapped him to a backboard and carried him to our simulated
landing strip, I have to say I’m glad that one of the main points
emphasized here is prevention. Planning ahead and preparing well,
making good choices about the kinds of activities we do when we’re
really far from definitive medical care, and knowing how to identify
problems before they become life threatening: these are the take home
points for me.
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NORDIC SUCCESS
by Gary Thompson
MOSS Director of Operations, Nordic enthusiast
This past winter I joined the world of the Spandex Mafioso. That's
right, I became a skate skier. I trained, a little bit, worked on my
technique and entered the 36km Payette Lakes Nordic Marathon. My goal
was to finish, and I did with an ego destroying fall at the finish
line. As I awkwardly pulled myself up, I had to wonder how I got in
this position - spread eagle, gasping for air, limbs feeling like they
are made of lead and unable to rise while 50 - 70 of my friends and
fellow competitors watched. The answer is simply that skate skiing is
a blast - a fun challenge and we are in one of the best places in the
country to do it. Jug Handle, Bear Basin, the Activity Barn and
Ponderosa State Park all offer Nordic skiers a chance to test their
abilities no matter their skill level. The town is also full of Nordic
enthusiasts and competitors.
This past winter, as part of its Live Well Idaho Initiative, the McCall
Outdoor Science School began offering Nordic instruction for folks of
all levels that were interested in skate or classic Nordic skiing. For
those that wanted another means of playing out in the snow we also
offered snow shoe tours of Ponderosa State Park. All lessons were free
to the public.
Our instructors are high caliber. Adrienne Boland, a former MOSS
instructor and our current Program Coordinator, led the snow shoe tours
and helps to organize many of our Nordic events. She used her first-
hand knowledge of the State Park and expertise in Winter Ecology to
share with folks a side of Ponderosa State Park that they normally do
not get to see. Kurt Wolfe, also a former instructor, headed up our
Nordic Skiing program. Kurt is a certified Nordic Ski Instructor and
the winner of this years Payette Lakes Nordic Ski Marathon. Based on
enrollment in this year's classes, it appears we will need to double
the number of classes that we will offer next year!
So thanks to all those who helped us build this program and special
thanks to Kurt and Adrienne for all of their hard work.
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INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW
by Karla Bradley
Director of Education
In February, the MOSS grad students helped me pilot test a new course
at MOSS called “Ecological Inquiry”. The point of this course was to
help students understand different perspectives on various local
environmental issues. To do this, we chose seven different issues,
ranging from fire to wolf reintroduction, to development in Valley
County, and students conducted background research then went into the
community and talked to various “stakeholders”, people who have reason
to have an opinion on the topic.
At the end of the course, each student group was expected to make a
presentation to help us as a class understand what they had learned
through their interviews. I have to say, this was by far my favorite
part of the course. To help us understand perspectives on wildfires,
students arranged a visit to a sawmill just south of New Meadows. To
help us understand perspectives on grazing on public land, we visited a
cattle ranch and helped the rancher with the morning feeding. We also
visited a hydropower dam and had a mock trial regarding Big Horn sheep.
I’ve lived and taught classes in McCall for nearly seven years, but
developing my own “sense of place” for this valley has been a long
process. In just several short weeks, through facilitating this
course, I found a whole new connection to this landscape and the social
fabric of the community. I definitely learned a lot about local
issues, but even more so, I was reminded of just how complex the human
side of natural resources management can be.
It was really cool to see this same sort of awareness develop in the
MOSS graduate students. Our instructors come from all over the
country, and for many, the topics that we were investigating were
totally new. Issues that seemed somewhat straightforward at the
beginning of the course were suddenly seen for all their complexity.
One of the things that I love about teaching at MOSS is that we are
committed to not pushing one particular point of view, but instead in
both our K12 and graduate programs we encourage critical thinking
skills, a sense of place, and skills for being a good member of the
community – proactive communication, responsibility, a willingness to
hear another point of view.
Studying environmental issues can feel really overwhelming, but one of
the things that I really took away from this course is a renewed faith
in the process that we have embraced here – helping kids develop their
own sense of place, encouraging critical thinking, and emphasizing
community skills. Environmental issues will always be really complex,
but I find a lot of hope in the idea that we’re helping to produce a
citizenry that has some skills to address the human dimensions of these
issues.
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Blog Archives
February 2008
January 2009
December 2008 |
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