Session 2 Projects, 2007
This page is mainly here for people registered for Oregon Session 2. They'll know what to do with it. If anybody else is just looking out of curiosity: these are descriptions of projects that we'll be spending 4 mornings (about 9 hours) on, working in small groups.
Important notes
1) If you read about a project that you are not listing as one of your choices on your questionnaire, but you *are* curious about it and can imagine getting to camp and then wanting to do it, consider bringing any recommended supplies (musical instruments, clothes you can get down and dirty in, etc.), just in case.
2) Although some people change their minds about what project they want once they get to camp, the best way to ensure your spot in a particular project is to sign up ahead of time, on your questionnaire. (Usually, though, most people get their first choices even if they change their minds at camp.)
3) This year everybody goes to the first morning of their project group, and checks in daily with their project group after advisee time. Aside from the first morning and that brief check-in: Three projects are open to people who may decide not to attend all sessions, and four require that everybody commits to all sessions, to better build trust within the group and work toward a common goal. (You can probably change your mind about which project you want once you get to camp, but once the projects begin, if you're in a committed project you need to show up for all sessions.)
OK to drop in and out:
- Tour the Mysteries of Color
- Build a Cob Prayer and Meditation Hut
- Surveys, Statistics, and (Un)Schooling
Committed participants only:
- Theater
- Music
- Gutsy Girls
- Wilderness Trip Planning
2007 Projects
Theater with Marina Moses
Build a cob prayer and meditation hut with Dawn Smith and Andy Burt
Surveys, Statistics, and (Un)Schooling with Ethan Mitchell
Gutsy Girls with Jasmine Sheldon
a music project led by Nathen Lester.
Wilderness Expedition Planning with Blake Boles
Tour the Mysteries of Color with Tilke Elkins
Surveys, Statistics, and (Un)Schooling
How does the way we get an education affect the rest of our life? Does having educational freedom make you learn more? Does it make you happier? Does it make you more likely to dye your hair and move to Eugene? Is educational freedom always a good thing, for everyone? If it isn’t, then when is freedom a bad thing, and why?
We all have answers to these questions from own personal experience, from our friends and family, and from our understanding about how the world works. But so far, we have no answers from social science, because the questions have only begun to be asked in that way. In this project, we’re going to change that.
Ethan has been surveying former unschoolers and schoolers, and has a mountain of raw data to analyze. In our project, we'll take on this data and / or create our own small survey of campers. We’ll learn about survey methods, basic statistical methods, and maybe some more advanced statistical tools. Most importantly, we’ll have the chance to look at unschooling through the lens of statistics: something that pretty much no one has done before.
This isn’t a math class! We'll focus on concepts and ideas, not equations or numbers. In fact, I would recommend this project to people who aren't in love with formulas and equations, because you’ll get a big-picture sense of what statistics can (and can’t) do. But if you do love to play with horrible spreadsheets full of numbers, you may be in luck...
Please note that while it's OK to be in this project without committing to all sessions, it probably won't be as much fun for people who only attend part time; if you miss a session you may find yourself confused or out of the loop.
Ethan’s Relevant Experience: "I love horrible spreadsheets full of numbers. In the past, I’ve worked on statistical papers about all sorts of stuff: consensus process; town meetings; stock trading; intentional communities; local currencies; nomads; and other stuff I forget just now." Also, as you can see from the photo taken by Allen Ellis at NBTSC 2006, Ethan is a tenacious observer of unschoolers and their habits.
Tour the Mysteries of Color
led by Tilke Elkins
(Actually, the complete title of this workshop is:
A Vast And Extensive Tour of the Mysteries and Wonders of the Colors We See With Our Eyes, Complete With Astounding Experiments, Mind-Blowing Revelations, and Delicious Fabrications.)
Do you love color? Do you wonder what exactly color is? Would you like to PLAY with color?
I want to take YOU on an exploratory tour of the fabulous world of color. There’s more to color than red plus blue makes purple, let me tell you. In fact, red plus blue doesn’t make purple at all; not really.
Day One: Colors Themselves
The Make-As-Many-Differnt-Colors-As-You -Can Color Contest
What do you mean, red and blue don’t make purple?! Find out answers to this and more, as you take the Color Challenge. Use paint, pencils, crayons, pastels, markers, vegetables, stones, and more to make as many colors as you can!
Day Two: The Secret Colors of Plants
Plants have colors hidden in them that come out when they’re soaked in hot water. Changing things from one color to another is a magical process. With the help of some plants we find right there in the woods (like blackberries and pear leaves), and others that I’ll bring along with me (like madder and walnut husks), we'll mix up several different cauldrons of color and transform three kinds of cloth (some treated with powders and dusts) with colors that will shock and amaze. We’ll use plant dyes to make as many different colored flags as we can to hang from trees all around camp, as well as to dye any clothes you have with you you'd like to make colored.
Day Three: Human (and Animal) Colors
Did you know that human beings are made up of five basic colors? Find out what they are, and learn why blue eyes have no blue in them. Are there any purple or green mammals? Get to the bottom of these sorts of questions.
Next, create your own color portrait. What colors do you think represent you best? Your tools will be scissors, glue, and billions of tiny pieces of colored paper. Once you’ve completed your own color portrait, take a turn manning the Color Portrait Booth, and give other campers and staff a chance to get their portraits done. Results will hang in a Color Portrait Gallery.
Day Four: Color Celebration
A Color Feast to celebrate color! Food has color in it, and there are many colored foods you can’t find at the grocery store: purple potatoes, pink carrots, yellow tomatoes, red celery, the list goes on. Together, we’ll use these amazing foods to create a feast. We’ll attend the feast dressed in a single color of our choice, with our faces painted with natural-pigment face paints we make.
Optional stuff to bring: All supplies will be provided; you need not bring a thing. However, you have the power to expand our color vocabulary even more by bringing your favorite color-making things -- paints, pastels, hair-dye, colored paper and so on. If you have any light colored cotton, silk, or wool clothing you’d like to dye that’s not too big (T-shirts or bandanas are good), bring that. If you have clothes in a particular color that you'd like to wear to the Feast, bring those. AND ALSO: any questions you’ve ever had about color. Challenge me. I will have my ever-building collection of books about color with me.
Tilke's relevant background: One of my early passions was perching on a boulder in a pile of rubble behind a horse barn, crushing up rocks for what I referred to as the "Paint Factory." A child of two synaesthetes (people who see colors in their mind's eyes when they think of letters and numbers) and a synaesthete myself, color has always been one of my primary ways of interpreting the world. I've spent the last two years researching color and working on an all-ages book about some kids that live in a flying house and think about color a lot. They're characters from a magazine I made for a while called All Round which featured theme issues about things like Flying, and Being Born, and How Animals Talk (the first issue was about, can you guess...). In my garden, I am helping red amaranth, yellow tomatoes, red celery, purple potatoes, purple spinach, purple tomatillos and pink lamb's quarters grow as big and healthy as possible so they can be devoured.
Theater
led by Marina Moses
Marina says:
I imagine this project starting out starting out with improvisational theater and movement games and culminating in a performance. In between, anything could happen, including investigation into scriptwriting, costumes, props, masks, shaping performance around place, saying yes to the world, social justice, gender, personal growth--anywhere campers want it to go!
More specifically, my plan is to learn a whole lot about building a character, building a story, and expressing what you want to express. We’ll spend time trying to copy each other’s walks, being coherently spontaneous, playing with status, accepting everything, laughing ourselves sick, and being really loud. Depending on the interests of people involved, we could work on some scriptwriting, costumes, sets, lighting design, theater history, directing, etc. In addition, I think theater is an incredible tool for exploring some of the most complex issues people deal with on both a personal and cultural scale. We can use skills involved in theater to explore philosophy, social justice, family dynamics, relationships, and/or prejudice -- and, of course, humor.
People who have never done any theater stuff and people who’ve been on stage their whole lives are equally welcome.
This is a committed project, because: Improvisation requires being vulnerable, and maintaining a cohesive and supportive group is extremely important in creating a space where we can do that. On a more prosaic level, we’ll be building particular skills, and the more you’re there while we’re learning about character physicality and scene structure, the more fun putting together a performance will be.
Marina's relevant background: performing competitive comedy improvisation with ComedySportz; two years of designing and running lights for Prescott College’s dance and theatre performances; participating in a 24 Hour Play Project as playwright and director (yes, they wrote and produced plays in 24 hours); designing, promoting and teaching a week-long Children’s Theatre Workshop earlier this summer for kids ages 7-14; and being involved in upwards of two dozen productions in every capacity except costumes and sound over the last ten years. She'll also be getting a BA next May with a minor in Theatre.
Gutsy Girls
led by Jasmine Sheldon
Are you a gutsy girl? Do you want to define “girlhood” for yourself? Join us as we create a girl inspired space where we’ll ask ourselves and each other what it means to be a girl today and how that relates to who we are. What does it mean to you to be a young woman today? What do you love, hate, and not understand? What do you want to reinvent for yourself?
We’ll explore our intersecting identities by using creative expression in all of its forms (photography, painting, drawing, written expression, spoken word, poetry, dance, music, mask making, etc…). We’ll be really silly, push ourselves to question our notions & ideas of “girl” and create a community that is warm, open, and thoughtful and celebrates each on of us.
Bring your ideas, enthusiasm, a "gutsy girl" outfit to dress up in, and any thoughts, writings & art you have about being a girl.
This is a committed project open to anyone who self-identifies as female. (Transgender & Gender-queer inclusive)
Wilderness Expedition Planning
led by Blake Boles
Learn about the preparation and tools you need to enjoyably backpack long distances with a lightweight pack!
In this project, you'll get to:
Learn basic outdoor safety including injury treatment, CPR, and environmental hazards.
Build your own denatured alcohol stove from cat food cans.
Learn to use map & compass with a real-life orienteering course.
Play with Blake's backpacking gear, and learn about heavyweight backpacking vs. lightweight backpacking
Compile a gear list, meal plan, and trip itinerary for 2-14 days.
And...for people who get really into this project, Blake may even offer a post-camp backpacking trip around Crater Lake.
Blake's relevant background: Blake has led wilderness backpacking and canoeing trips at Deer Crossing Camp in the California High Sierras for 4 years. He has logged over 400 personal miles on the Pacific Crest Trail, including sections in the Mojave Desert and John Muir Trail. In February he trekked to 15,500' (in South America) and used that opportunity to study the finer details of altitude sickness. He is a certified Emergency Medical Technician and Red Cross Instructor in CPR, AED, and Oxygen Administration for the Professional Rescuer, and holds certificates in Wilderness First Aid and Lifeguarding.
Help build a cob prayer hut
led by Dawn Smith (and either Andy Burt or his assistant)
(The photos are from our 2005 version of this project.)
Come get your hands muddy and learn about cob construction and natural building! A prayer hut at Camp Myrtlewood is under construction (started at NBTSC 2005!), and you are invited to help build it. It will be a small simple structure, mostly made out of cob (a mixture of sand, clay, straw and water) for use as a meditation retreat. Along with constructing the hut, we will explore the principles and reasons behind Natural Building- the way of building with the earth instead of against it.
Anyone is encouraged to attend this workshop--no experience necessary!
Check out http://www.sgnb.com/intro.php for more about cob houses.
Make sure you bring a water bottle, and clothes--ideally including work gloves--that you are comfortable getting muddy in.
Andy's relevant background
Andy trained with the Cob Cottage Company for 2 years, and now works for Seventh Generation Natural Builders. Together with his partner and son, Andy lives as far off the grid as it gets. On a small tract of land in the northern reaches of Oregon's Siskyou Mountains, they sustainably maintain their humble homestead.
This year Andy may need to leave Oregon partway through the project, so his able assistant (sorry, we don't have this person's name!) may take over.
Dawn's relevant background
Dawn is a former NBTSC camper (and staffer) and a life long unschooler. Dawn worked for a straw bale construction company in Canada for four years and is currently an Intern at The Occidental Arts and Ecology Center in Northern California. Dawn enjoys studying all aspects of natural building, including composting toilets, passive solar, hot water heating, and water collection. Dawn believes that we can make the world a better place by building better houses.
Nathen's Music Project
led by Nathen Lester
~the rest of camp dances while the 2005 music project performs~
In this project our group will create a piece of music to perform for the camp, arranged specifically for whoever signs up and whatever instruments they bring. In the process, we'll hone our playing and listening skills. In the past three years it's been really fun--everyone ends up with a part that suits their skill level and that adds up to a cool sounding song. Last year the whole camp spontaneously danced while we played!
Nathen's relevant background: "I've been playing in bands for over 30 years and writing music for about 15 and it's been one of my most consistent sources of joy. It's been especially gratifying to do this music project and learn how to play with other musicians. Some of the participants have gotten inspired to start bands of their own."
It is not necessary to bring an instrument but it is helpful. It's not necessary to have any experience playing music with other people. Consider signing up even if you haven't played music before, but be willing to work hard at it for the hours that we have together.
Archival moment: what Nathen said about his first-ever music project (2003):
Last year the music project went wonderfully! We had a group of about twelve musicians with skill levels varying from beginner to accomplished, many of whom had never played with others before. We had all kinds of instruments including electric and acoustic guitars, bass, violin, hand drum, tap shoes, voice and ukulele. Over the course of a few days we learned to listen to each other and play together and wrote a song called “Dancing Frogs” which we performed for the NBTSC concert to great applause. Each participant played a part that challenged them and added to the feel of the ensemble and the piece. It was very fun.
Nathen's 2003 music project playing their song "The Dancing Frogs," photo by Dawn Smith