This is my big Idea

Video by SIUCCommunications

SIUC Outdoor Leadership Program




This is what I had in mind for my project. I don't mind if this happens on a smaller scale, but I want the individuals who are participating to understand ideas and concepts of the projects, such as leadership skills and the beauty of the outdoors.

Background Information

I’m going to give you a little bit of my camping background. As you know, I went camping with my school’s Young Men’s Group in my 8th grade. This was the first time I’ve been camping so it influenced me a lot because not only was it my first time, but it was a fun trip. This made me want to go camping again because I wanted to go through the same experience. I wanted to be away from civilization with my close friends. I wanted to have fun again. This was when I decided to attend the Woods Project during the summer of my 9th grade.

The Woods Project was awesome. I spent two weeks at Yosemite National Park; during the first week I stayed in cabins, and during the second week, I went backpacking. This trip was very fun because I was with some of my schoolmates and I met other students from different schools. I also learned a lot over the environment of the park and the importance of the outdoors.

During the summer of my 10th grade year, I was selected to attend NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School). The reason I chose to do NOLS was because I wanted to go through the same experience I went through in my previous trips. I went backpacking for a month in the Pacific Northwest with eleven other people. It was an amazing experience to go off for a month and see the world in a different view.

My First Steps

Hello everyone. As many of you know, my name is Richard Juarez and this will be the site where I will post the progress of my Senior Project. First of all, I need to tell you the idea for my project. Throughout the summer, I’ve been brainstorming many ideas for my project, but none of them seemed to interest me.

Then the school year began, and a lot of my classmates already had an idea of their projects; I was clueless about mine. I began to think about things that I enjoyed doing, and camping was the first thing that popped into my mind. I love the outdoors. I feel in love with it during my 8th grade when I went on a camping trip with my school’s Young Men’s Group for the weekend; it was one of the best times I had with my schoolmates. Ever since this experience, I’ve been hooked on camping.

I don’t have a clear idea right now of the direction of my project, but I basically want to create a camping group that will see the same wonders that I see in the outdoors. If any of you have any ideas or comments about my project, feel free to comment below.