Soaring Thru Spaces Program

Life Skills….   Character Education….  Character Development.  

Call it what you will.  It is increasingly necessary for today’s adolescents to gain experience with basic “life skills".  Including leadership, empathy, communication and teamwork, these skills are necessary to become independent, well-functioning members of society.   

The Soaring Thru Spaces program tackles these topics head on, offering students an opportunity to “practice for real life.”   Small groups of students are given challenges in which they must cooperate with each other, share ideas, create plans and make decisions.  These challenges are provided in a way that the consequences seem high, but are actually very much controlled. 

As students make choices, make necessary mistakes, and create a certain level of frustration, “teachable moments” take shape.  Penn’s trained staff of facilitators are able to take these teachable moments and turn them into solid moments of change or realization in individuals. 

More details on "team challenges"

Students are also challenged to go “outside their comfort zone” on the high ropes course, a series of ropes, cables and other apparatus safely geared for use by students at all levels of experience and comfort.   Staff are trained intensively on safe use of these educational tools, and the elements themselves are built to exacting specifications set out by the

Association of Challenge Course Technology.

Team challenges, high ropes elements and other daytime activities are complemented by shared meals, shared cabin living, small-group campfires and focused discussion times to create intense, multi-day educational experiences. 

See sample schedules for the Soaring Thru Spaces Program