SAS Blog

Guest post written by Miles Bowlin, Lead Operations Staff

Outside the realm of religion, it is perhaps educators who hold the most faith. They bare their souls to students, working tirelessly to instill in them knowledge, not only about the arts and sciences, but about being a good human. Then, after a predetermined period of time, they let those students go, often never to see them again. The kindergarten math teacher can only hope that their foundational lessons in addition and subtraction will stick and one day compound into a proclivity for algebra and geometry. Hope—that is the key word. It’s nigh impossible to see the impact of work that matures at the same rate that children grow into adults.

To celebrate the final night of Science Adventure School each week, we host a campfire with skits, songs, and s’mores. At the end of the campfire, a SAS staff member shares a story about how living in or moving to West Virginia has transformed them, emphasizing the natural beauty and opportunities in West Virginia. Finally, we all sing “Take Me Home, Country Roads” together in the firelight.

One night during “Country Roads,” a student named Aiden began intensely crying. While his teacher consoled him, he simply said, “This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I never want to leave West Virginia.” Later, the teacher shared with us that Aiden had only recently moved to West Virginia, and that the teachers had never heard him speak up in class as much as he had at SAS. The teacher then continued to say, “I haven’t been able to make an impact like this with a student in the past ten years that I’ve been teaching middle school. This is the type of experience students need, to really want to stay in this state and be passionate about it.”

Guest post by Regan Fox, SAS Guide