RECED: 260 Northwest Fitness Exploration

Peter Prescott, who is the Fitness Center director, Wellness Center program manager, among “too many” other things at Bellevue College, is teaching a class that will introduce students to a variety of outdoor activities. “We’re looking to promote Northwest Fitness Exploration, a two credit recreational education class,” he said. The class is based upon students’ “active participation in a slew of outdoor activities. The schedule starts with one on- campus classroom session,” which will be held on Thursday, April 17, 2014, “and over those two hours we’ll cover trip planning, logistics, the schedule of events and grading.”
Though the first week of spring quarter is over, the class is still open to newcomers, who are encouraged to join. The class needs to bump up its enrollment count by April 26 in order to continue this quarter. “Beyond that,” Prescott continued, “the schedule will include two day hikes, an introduction
to indoor rock climbing, an introduction to sea kayaking, and then we’ll do two overnight trips: an overnight backpacking trip and a San Juan Island bike tour.”
Poppy Powell, a student enrolled in RECED 260 this quarter, said, “I’m excited to test the waters of an array of activities available to me here in the Northwest. I haven’t had the opportunity to try many of them before.” Roya Banan, another student in the class, said, “Learning skills like outdoor cooking and snowshoeing will be really fun and useful. I encourage
anyone who enjoys the outdoors to join the class.” Prescott explained, “We spent the first week doing some team building, and we’ll do a little more team building at the challenge course this coming Thursday as well. By the time [students] show up for our first event, they know each other really, really well, so it really becomes a lot of fun.” “It is the introductory class to the Wilderness Skills Certificate Program. It gives people an idea of all the skills they’ll be learning [while earning] that 19-credit certificate.
[They will be participating in] recreational outdoor adventure for the sake of true introduction.” Students may find themselves wondering: “What is it like to go rock climbing? What is it like to go sea kayaking?” Prescott continued, “And then you can take individual one- credit classes beyond that that would give you a full education, which would give you the ability to start doing those activities on your own. So this is like the snapshot: Hey, [these are] all the things we do in our program. Come and try them for one day,
and then you can pick off individual classes. … Once you combine enough of those credits and [you have accumulated] 19, you complete the Wilderness Skills Program.”
Signing up for RECED 260 does not obligate students to complete the Wilderness Skills Certificate Program, though it is an option.
Anyone interested in finding out more or wishing to register for the class should contact Peter Prescott at peter. prescott@bellevuecollege. edu or (425) 564-2032.