“Timber for President": Adventure Learning and Motivation

Adventure learning (Al) provides learners with opportunities to explore real-world issues through authentic learning experiences within collaborative online learning environments. This article reports on an Al program, designed using Keller's Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction (ACRS) motivational model of instructional design, which encompassed more than 3 million learners worldwide. The implementation of AL was examined through two experimental lenses: (a) how student motivation is related to student and teacher characteristics and (b) how student motivation is related to the ways in which the program was used within the classroom. Qualitative and quantitative measures were analyzed, including 21 teacher interviews and surveys of 228 respondents who used the online curriculum in 300 separate courses in grades K-10 ranging from social studies to science to history courses. The date is June 18 th. The Arctic Transect team has landed at the Minne-apolis-St. Paul International Airport after six months of crossing the Cana-dian Arctic by dogsled. Although schools have been dismissed for summer, hundreds of teachers and students, cameras in hand, flood the baggage claim area anxiously waiting to welcome the team home. even though these individuals are strangers to one another, many whom travelled for hours from various cities throughout Minnesota and its neighboring states, a common strand holds them firmly together: all were involved with the adventure learning program, Arctic Transect. Standing near the entrances of the arrivals terminal, one young boy holds a sign that reads, " Timber for President " (Figure 1). Timber was the Polar Husky sled dog on the trail that " wrote " Timber tales, the biweekly update of what was happening in the field from the perspective of a dog, Timber. Figure 1. students who used the Al program wait to greet AT2004 team members at the airport; June 2004. Arctic Transect: An Educational Exploration of Nunavut (AT) was an adventure learning program that connected more than 3,000,000 students and teachers around the world. In real-time, a team of educators and explorers traveled by dogsled from Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada across Nunavut—the newest territory in the Canadian Arctic—to their final location at the north end of Baffin Island, Pond Inlet. Along the way, as the team dog sledded throughout this region they interacted with seven inuit communities where they spent time collecting media artifacts (e.g., video, audio, photographs, interactive QuickTime Virtual Reality files), gathered data for 485 " Timber for President " : Adventure Learning …