I went to Camp Green Meadows on May 6-10 with Westside Elementary school. For me this experience was life changing. It was a fun week where I got to be a camp leader which meant I helped the naturalists during class and I stayed in the cabins with the students. It was one other leader and me with 15 girls for Cedar cabin. 

Camp Green Meadow is an outdoor school that has morning, afternoon, teacher time and night class for the students. Camp leaders helped with morning and afternoon activities. We went on hikes and talked about different outdoor activities. We have one afternoon class that was team building, survival skills and a day where the class was based on the book Hatchet. Night classes involved lessons about the stars and about how some animals have night vision. Students even got to enjoy rock climbing and during recess so many fun activities.

There were multiple naturalists who are people that work at the camp. They teach different classes about how many different survivors think that it would be good to know if something may have happened. They did daily check-ins with all of the cabin leaders and for me this was important because I could talk or ask any questions that I had throughout the week. 

Camp leaders could join the night class if they wanted to or we could take our break. During this break was just a time when the students were either in their night class or teacher time. I joined one night class and it was a little solo hike in the dark with no flashlight. The naturalist that was teaching this class was talking about how using a flashing light in the dark was not always good for our eyes. So we walked for maybe about less than 5 minutes and one by one we walked back through the little forest area to the other teacher holding the red light. This was interesting and also very hard for people to do.  

There were multiple naturalists who are people that work at the camp. They teach different classes about different nature things. They did daily check-ins with all of the cabin leaders and for me this was important because I could talk or ask any questions that I had throughout the week. 

We had to do a skit with our cabin at the end of the week. Our cabin decided to do a news report about how littering can cause forest fires with different types of commercials in between. We had commercials about Febreze, a compass, and a welcome to camp green meadows. This was good for all of the students and the camp leader because we got to connect and make something fun. 

I was able to bond and communicate with some of the girls in my cabin. All of the girls in the camp were nice and helpful. Sometimes it was hard to get them to listen, but for the most part, they would pay attention and listen to me and the other camp leader. 

My favorite part of camp and being a camp leader was the campfire. We had two campfires throughout the week. For me it was really fun to sit and sing all these songs. Some of the songs we had were “Dirt Made my Lunch”, “The F.B.I.”, and “The Scat Rap.” Just sitting there and seeing all of the students sing and having fun was very rewarding. I enjoyed joining in and singing with them. Throughout the whole week I always looked forward to going to a campfire. 

This week was a little different then what a normal week would have been but it was perfect in its own way. I got to learn things about myself and about how to survive in different situations. I learned how to work with students and work with other people. I am thankful for the opportunities I had during this week. I would recommend this experience for other students.