“A trip intended to launch not only learning but hope…” – Jacques Cousteau

Jacques Cousteau is known for a lot of different things: film maker, inventor, ‘custodian of the sea’, explorer, and one of the fathers of conservation. In celebration of Jacques Cousteau and the holidays, the Cousteau Society recently released ten documentaries including Cousteau’s ‘Lilliput in Antarctica’.

These documentaries were so unique for their time, broadcasting every Saturday; they allowed people to view a world that they had never before seen ¹. ‘Lilliput in Antarctica’ follows Cousteau and six 11 year olds representing each continent on the ultimate experiential learning adventure, a research cruise to Antarctica.

Jacques and some penguin friends.

During the film you see a group of excited young minds learn the rudiments of navigation and keep journals of feelings and first time events. They stop to visit King George Island before heading to Antarctica where they take a tour through an experimental greenhouse at the Poland Research Station. Much as Cousteau explains it “The magic of Antarctica… its gifts come one by one”. And one by one the students saw humpback whales, ice birds, penguins, seals, and elephant seals along the way. They viewed them as ‘cautious visitors in a fragile magical land’.

Our own Antarctica, navigation at High Trails.

At High Trails, we implement the same kind of hands on experiential learning, teaching orienteering classes where the students are challenged to use compasses to complete navigation courses. We also teach a respect for the environment and the habitats we are in by explaining the concept of ‘Leave no Trace’ or LNT and encourage students to get to know this new environment with activities like ‘Hug a Tree’ where we blindfold students and have them use their other senses to get to know the forest, using the world around us as the greatest teaching tool.

Using senses other than your eyes.

In the documentary, students also viewed firsthand the impact of pollution by exploring the site of a wrecked oil ship that continues to leak oil into the environment. The ship is “a monument to impotence, still sinking, still seeping. Could such accidents be erased?” What an important question to ask 11 year olds – our next generation of problem solvers.

Cousteau explains that due to its location, this ship is unlikely to ever be salvaged even though it still contained 60,000 gallons of oil at the time.

In one scene of this film, Cousteau makes a statement about how children, spoken to but rarely questioned about their own views, are actually being asked to speak up. The next scene shows the students touring schools answering questions at different schools. One question caught my attention in particular where a young man asked “Now that you know it’s beautiful what will you DO to stop mining?” What a question to be posed from an 11 year old to an 11 year old! This is so similar to the question we pose to students on the last day of program after our dramatic reenactment of Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax:

“What will you go home and do with what you’ve learned? How will YOU help protect our future?”

The Lorax Cast at High Trails

Cousteau says: “I think of all the children growing up today in a world of asphalt and concrete unable to imagine such wilderness can still exist.” Similar thoughts and emotions come up with students from Southern California attending High Trails and being in the mountains for their first time, experiencing snow for the first time, and getting their first taste of nature.

This kind of wilderness DOES exist in Southern California!

Cousteau empowers these 11 year olds not only with knowledge and firsthand experience but with the feeling that they can make a difference. He also fosters a love and passion for the environment in the hopes that they will continue to grow it and be ‘ambassadors’ sharing it with others. This is why this particular documentary spoke to me so much because it is in line with the High Trails mentality and the reason why I love being a part of the High Trails community. We are here teaching outdoor science courses but we are also attempting to nurture a love for the outdoors and try in some small part to create a better, more responsible and environmentally conscience generation.

Just as Jacques Cousteau said about Lilliput in Antarctica, High Trails is “a trip not only to launch learning but hope…”

At High Trails Outdoor Science School, we literally force our instructors to write about elementary outdoor education, teaching outside, learning outside, our dirty classroom (the forest…gosh), environmental science, outdoor science, and all other tree hugging student and kid loving things that keep us engaged, passionate, driven, loving our job, digging our life, and spreading the word to anyone whose attention we can hold for long enough to actually make it through reading this entire sentence. Whew…. www.dirtyclassroom.com