Wynne Anderson- Project Proposal

Trip Leader Training: A Semester of Training at the Outdoor Recreation Center

I intend to cover the training of the University of Maryland Outdoor Recreation Center employees. These employees, referred to as Trip Leaders in Training (TLTs), go through an intense year-long training program in which they learn specific skills for outdoor leadership and safety. By the beginning of next year, these students will become Trip Leaders that take other University of Maryland students to the outdoors on weekend trips. This training includes hands on physical experiences, such as participation in rock climbing, backpacking, and kayaking trips as well as sit down tests and meetings. They also must become Wilderness First Responder certified, often referred to as WFR or "Woofer" certified, which includes a certification program that takes place over the summer. The audience will be able to follow this group of University of Maryland students as they learn to come together as a group and develop their leadership and outdoor survival skills.

My project is relevant as it pertains to average University of Maryland students. It will profile the different students and trips, demonstrating exactly what it takes to become a trip leader. What gives the level or relevance an edge is that my subjects will start out as average students and become leaders throughout the semester. Any University of Maryland students can go on these trips, and now they will be able to see the behind the scenes aspect. These are trips for students led by students.

My audience will be students who are enthusiastic about the outdoors or want to know more about the Outdoor Rec Center (ORC). The subjects will most likely also be eager to see their transformation in this project. Hopefully, everyone will enjoy this project whether they know anything about the ORC or not.

My subjects for photography will be the TLTs themselves, other ORC staff, and the bosses. I will take many pictures of the trips and training sessions as well. The pictures will show the sit down meeting aspects and the actual “get outside” aspect of the TLT training.

My finished product will show photo slides with audio clips and also video. It will have the TLTs speaking, the bosses speaking, and recordings of some of the training sessions.

The locations of my project will differ. Obviously, lots of the settings will be the Outdoor Recreation Center. The rest will be out in the outdoors, such as state parks and rivers. It will show a lot of the outdoors, but some indoor photos as well. I will have to get these pictures and audio clips and videos during the training sessions, making my time window specific to those times. I will run this at the end of the semester, when the TLTs are halfway done with their training. I will have to emphasize that they are only half way through, which is not ideal as I would like to follow them for the entire year. My costs will include my equipment for recording and video taping, and any external cost for outdoor equipment.

The audience will be interested in this presentation as it profiles a group of kids with a common goal as they go from complte strangers to a group of well trained, outdoor savy leaders. The audience, predominately University of Maryland students, will have seen advertisments around campus or have maybe even been on trips before, and will now have the opportunity to see the behind the scenes with these students in training. The peice will profile inidividual students as well as the group as a whole