Natural classroom
UTC course sends students into great outdoors to take advantage of area’s resources
Four students, a professor and a dog huddled around a map more than a quarter-mile past the 50-foot bridge they had just crossed. Or was it the 150-foot bridge? That question made all the difference.
The group was turned around but not quite lost. Their first day of backpacking and hiking class had prepared them for this. They had learned to read maps along with other outdoor skills during one of the few days the class spent indoors.
But that didn’t exempt the students, or the professor, from getting turned around during their recent hike. The map wasn’t entirely clear. One squiggly black line marked the main trail at Laurel Snow State Natural Area in Dayton, Tenn., but unmarked side trails and split-offs lined the path.
If the bridge was 50 feet, they were on the right path, but 150 feet would mean they had gotten onto the wrong, adjoined trail, traversed a different bridge and were headed in the wrong direction.
“If we follow the creek, that will take us in the right direction,” one student said.
“Let’s go back to where we crossed [the creek],” another added.
After a brief discussion, that’s what they did. They turned around and backtracked. They crossed the bridge, determining it was too long to be 50 feet. The path led them back to another section of the creek, a section with no bridge, where they had previously shimmied across a fallen tree, hoping to stay dry as the professor carried her frightened dog, Rocky, while sliding across the downed log. It was the last place where they knew for certain they had been on the correct path.
And there it was, a sign. It stood where they determined the 50-foot bridge once spanned, pointing them in the right direction. The bridge had, unbeknownst to them, been removed.
This was the first trip of the relaunched University of Tennessee at Chattanooga hiking and backpacking class. The class was offered for several years but didn’t have enough interest from professors who could teach it, class professor Alana Retseck-Coulter said.
“When I saw they had the need for the adjunct position, I hopped on,” she said.
Retseck-Coulter and the 16 students in the class are learning general hiking and backpacking skills through hands-on experience. They’ve learned what to pack and what not to pack, types of bags, how to prepare for day hikes and overnight trips, survival skills and how to take care of nature. They’ve also learned, through experience, what to do if they get lost.
Throughout the semester,
they’ll take several hiking trips and a weekendlong backpacking trip to test their skills and gain hands-on experience.
The relaunched class is part of a restructured outdoors education program at the university.
“The outdoors major has been there for a long time, but just this last year, we restructured it,” program associate professor Andrew Bailey said.
The previous program focused on sports, outdoors and leisure, which could get confusing for students and professors,
he said. Students had to pick one of the three tracks, and it wasn’t always clear-cut.
“Take USA Cycling. Would you call that sports or outdoor recreation? Or even leisure?” Bailey said. “It’s all three, really, and because Chattanooga has so many opportunities like that, it didn’t make sense to separate them.”
The track also didn’t allow for much customization, he said. Students were locked in to core major classes — even if they found classes better suited for their postgraduation needs — and couldn’t easily crossover between tracks.
The new major, called Sport, Outdoor Recreation and Tourism Management, allows students to supplement core curriculum with elective courses that support their professional interests.
The goal is to more broadly cater to specific career paths for students and allow them to create a curriculum that will help them land jobs in their desired fields.
The program features classes in climbing, wilderness rescue and more, allowing students to experience the region’s outdoors firsthand as they interact with the environment and study the area’s ecosystem.
“If you look at Chattanooga, we are trying to capitalize on what’s here,” Bailey said.
As students take part in the program, they talk, write and reflect on how areas, events and decisions impact the region.
Bailey has seen students use the outdoors program at UTC to launch into related careers in a variety of ways. The program has graduates working in camp management, public recreation, therapeutic recreation, recreation management, at local company RootsRated and other related careers across the U.S.
The program has gained in popularity, ballooning to nearly 250 students with more students from outside majors taking the classes as electives.
That’s the case for senior exercise science major Avery Blankenburg, who was one of the four students on RetseckCoulter’s hike.
“I’m a senior, so it’s my last semester, and I’ll be headed back [home] to Knoxville [for graduate school],” she said. “I wanted to learn and enjoy and experience all of the outdoors in Chattanooga.”
The university plans to continue growing the program as interest increases.
“Whenever the opportunity arises, we’ll fold those [classes] in,” Bailey said. “We’ve been doing that since I’ve been here, six years, and it’s really just trying to capitalize on what’s going on in Chattanooga and in the region. Chattanooga is a growing place. A lot of things are going on, and our students can be involved in it if we’re flexible enough to make it happen.”