Red Hook High School’s IB Diploma candidates last week took a field trip last week to A.I.R. – Albany’s Indoor Rock Gym.
The students – 34 of the school’s 35 full IB Diploma candidates – learned how to rock climb with partners and explored caves with areas in which the students the students experienced total darkness and had to work together to get out of the caves. The experience aligns with the IB Learner Profile, in which they needed to take risks, work together and overcome challenges.
“I was so happy at how much they enjoyed themselves,” IB Theory of Knowledge teacher Bill Decker said. “There was no pressure to engage in all the activities, but amazingly all the students tried climbing and all of them went on the cave experience.”
Decker said off-campus activities that encourage students to challenge themselves and be physically active was originally part of the IB program when it was started at the school two decades ago, and he’s brought it back since becoming CAS coordinator two years ago. Last year the IB candidates went to an escape room.
“The students experienced four different escape scenarios and had to work together in groups of four to solve their way out,” Decker said.