NYC ICO Trip Report
Agency: MS 126
Date: 5/20/2017
Destination: Muscoot Farm State Park / Hudson Valley Orienteering Event
Whenever we hear the youth exclaim, “I don’t want to leave!,” we know we’ve pulled off another successful trip. And during our time at Muscoot Farm, there was something to magnetize everyone, and provide each an opportunity for exploration and expression.
Upon filing out of the bus after our hour-long drive up from Chinatown onto the grounds of Muscoot Farm, the students were immediately attracted by the small herd of newborn goats (and the bathroom). After those priorities were gotten out of the way, our group of 28 youth and 6 adults circled up for some familiar ice breakers to get comfortable with each other. After signing in for the Hudson Valley Orienteering event, we quieted down and listened to a brief explanation of the sport of orienteering and its basic concepts by one of the patient and informative HVO volunteers.
Our small horde of students split themselves up into groups for a staggered start on the morning’s orienteering course through the farm’s surrounding fields and woods. Between the plethora of plants and animals populating the farm grounds, groups waiting to begin the course were not pressed for ways to occupy their time – one group even received an informal lecture on common herbs and their uses with a raw tasting, compliments of a passing farm volunteer.
As soon as the youth began the course, any confusions about the essential processes of orienteering were clarified as we put foot to path. One of the great pleasures of this trip was watching as the youth’s uncertainty and puzzlement gradually gave way to understanding, and witnessing the exact moment as that understanding grew to confidence. And although some groups blazed their winding, zig zag paths through series of trial and error, they all found their destination, with a greater sense of how to find exactly where they are, and get to where they want to be.
As groups trickled back to the starting point, we sat for a well-earned and well-stocked lunch catered by Panera Bread Co., provided through the generous funding of the Sophie Gersen Healthy Youth Program. Between bites of turkey sandwiches and apples, we recounted the particular strategies we employed along the course (“Look where the people in front are going, and beat them to it!,” “Yeah, but you don’t know if they’re going the right way”) and regaled others with our highlights (“We went totally off the map, and almost crossed a river. It was hilarious!”).
The afternoon saw us taking a much more leisurely stroll along the farm’s 7-plus miles of trails, with a surprise appearance by a neighborhood tree frog. The youth had the opportunity to practice route selection and orientation, and we returned again to the farm grounds with ample time for a proper meet-and-greet with the farm’s megafauna. For youth who’ve had relatively few encounters with the animal kingdom outside of the gangs of city-dwelling squirrel or pigeon, getting up close with some extremely friendly animals can be a very memorable occasion, especially when those animals have entered this world only a few short weeks prior.
When the time came to pile onto the bus for our departure back to the city, it was with body’s more exhausted and memories much fuller than when we arrived. And whether it was a spirited competition racing through the woods, a leisurely stroll through nature, a meeting with an unexpectedly affectionate animal, or just time spent with friends away from school and city, this trip truly had something to offer each of us.