News
Amazing Race Kicks off Beyond the Gates
Beyond the Gates is a crucial and unique part of the Grade 9 curriculum at Shawnigan, and we waste no time getting students involved as soon as the school year starts.
This year’s BTG programming kicked off on Tuesday with the Amazing Race – a competition that incorporated many of the skills students will need and some of the challenges they may face over the course of the year.
The five challenges – building tents, carrying a stretcher, plant identification, orienteering, and decoding a cipher – were designed to test them on five different BTG-related skills: endurance, problem-solving, teamwork, collaboration, and navigation. It was also a chance for the students to have fun, get to know each other, and explore the campus.
Teams were formed based on Houses, allowing the students to form or build on existing relationships in those groups.
“We had students compete in House groups so that Grade 9s could work together to overcome challenges with familiar faces,” Outdoor Education Instructor Mr. Devin Ryan explained.
Mr. Ryan was especially impressed with the Groves’ House team, which stuck together despite being one of the slower teams to finish all the activities. They embodied the spirit of nutsamat, a word in Hul’qumi’num (one of the local Indigenous languages) that was introduced to BTG this year by Ms. Emily Coolidge, the Heimbecker Inspiration Chair for Experiential Education. Nutsamat is defined in multiple ways, but generally has the idea of coming together as a whole or “one heart, one mind.”
“The students took to the word, and worked together to overcome the obstacles we presented them,” Mr. Ryan said.
Because they stuck together, Groves’ ended up winning the Amazing Race along with Ripley’s House.
The entire event was a success, both in terms of having fun and introducing the concepts of Beyond the Gates, Ms. Coolidge commented.
“It was so much fun,” she said. “It was lovely; organized chaos. There was a lot of hype, a lot of competition. They seemed to enjoy the challenges.”
The students will carry the lessons from the Amazing Race into the upcoming Beyond the Gates backcountry trips. The Grade 9s will choose between two expeditions over the weekends of September 19-21 and September 26-28: hiking in Strathcona Provincial Park further north on Vancouver Island, or kayaking to Portland Island off the Saanich Peninsula.
We acknowledge with respect the Coast Salish Peoples on whose traditional lands and waterways we live, learn and play. We are grateful for the opportunity to share in this beautiful region, and we aspire to healthy and respectful relationships with those who have lived on and cared for these lands for millennia.
Shawnigan Lake School is an independent co-educational boarding school for ages 13 –18 on Canada’s beautiful Pacific Coast. Our diverse, interdisciplinary and innovative programming helps shape the next generation of global leaders.
