The Outdoor Leadership and Environmental Education Project - a program that matches students from the Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center, a local charter school, with Brown student mentors - will mark its 10th anniversary this year.
OLEEP was started by several students participating in the Brown Outdoor Leadership Training program who thought inner-city minorities should have the opportunity to experience the role of nature in turning groups of classmates into groups of close friends, said Ben Castleman '99.5, one of the group's founders and currently director of curriculum and assessment at the Met Center.
Castleman said the fact that the program is still alive and strong after a decade of work is "a testament to the dedication of the coordinators and the clarity of vision that the program has kept over the years."
Castleman helped found OLEEP in 1997. OLEEP "really came out of an experience I had on a BOLT trip my sophomore year," he said, explaining that his BOLT group's backpacking trip had brought his group together in a way that only outdoor experiences could. After BOLT, Castleman wanted to provide students in Providence with the same opportunity to experience nature. The program has continued to be strong ever since, he said.
While the program's methods have changed somewhat in the past 10 years, OLEEP still remains dedicated to its original vision, said Daniel Sonshine '07, co-coordinator for the program.
Sonshine said the program has three components: weekly workshops to teach environmental science, weekend hiking trips to nearby parks and trails and mentoring through which each Met student participant is assigned a Brown student mentor.
One of the major changes in OLEEP over the past decade has been the increasing emphasis on environmental science, Sonshine said. Though the group had started with a focus on connecting inner-city students with nature, the program has evolved to promote overall awareness of nature and the environment.
Rebecca de Sa '09, co-coordinator for OLEEP, explained that the group's emphasis on science is partly a reflection of the Met Center's educational requirements and requests from Met students.
She said the Met Center has a highly individualized approach to learning. Students typically participate in internships in several different fields, acquiring skills necessary for a well-rounded education, such as empirical and quantitative reasoning. Met student participants wanted to apply OLEEP to their quantitative reasoning requirement, so the group shifted its emphasis accordingly to focus more on science, de Sa said.
But OLEEP is working to keep in touch with its original goals, Sonshine said.
"The science curriculum, in the end, is really rewarding," Sonshine said. "But figuring out how to integrate leadership training and environmental awareness with that is a real challenge."
One of the ways the group keeps in touch with its roots is by taking weekend hiking trips to surrounding parks and trails. The group goes on several trips a semester - for example, later this month, Met students and their mentors will head to the Massachusetts-Connecticut border to hike part of the Appalachian Trail. Other activities have more of a focus on environmental awareness, such as a recent trip to the Providence Water Supply branch in Scituate.
Sixteen Met students are currently involved in the program, paired with 15 Brown student mentors - the 16th Met student helps coordinate the Met side of the program. Castleman estimated that more than 100 students from the Met have been involved in the program in its history.
"It's humbling to think that, 10 years after we began OLEEP, it's still going strong," Castleman said.
Both current student coordinators agreed that one of the most fulfilling aspects of the program is meeting the volunteers and participants.
"The people that I've met through OLEEP are terrific, and they really make the program. There is a serious aspect to what we do, but we have a lot of fun as well," de Sa said.
