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Fairfield
Resident Aims to
Take
Beardsley School
Scholars
to
New Heights
(Courtesy
of Westport News)
Every
day is a hike for Avery
Forbes.
Loading
up her backpack with shoes and bottles of water,
she treks across all types of terrain, including
a hilly circuit in the backyard of her Fairfield
home. Other days, she takes the pack with her to
a local gym where she hops on a treadmill and
ramps up the
machine's incline.
And
then there are her treks through Manhattan,
where she walks three miles from Grand Central
to SoHo-based prop company Weapons Specialists,
where she paints weapons props for shows like
"Boardwalk Empire" and
"30 Rock."
Together,
these "hikes" prepare Forbes for a more
ambitious journey: hiking the 2,181-mile
Appalachian Trail that runs through the mountain
range from Georgia
to Maine.
"I've
been dreaming about hiking the Appalachian Trail
since I was 11," she said. "I like to seek out
challenges. But I want what I'm doing to benefit
others as well."
To
that end, Forbes, 25, will also lead an
educational expedition during her five-month
journey. Partnering with
Bridgeport's Beardsley elementary
school and the American Horse
K-8 school in Allen, S.D., she will post
lessons to a website that will engage scores of
students in a mathematical, scientific, and
geographical exploration of
her hike.
The
teaching aspect reflects another passion of
Forbes. After graduating from Bowdoin
College in 2008, she taught fifth grade for two
years at American Horse through the Teach for
America program. She has also participated with
fellow congregants of Westport's Unitarian
Church in several volunteer initiatives at
Beardsley. An art history and visual arts major
at Bowdoin, she intends to eventually become an
art teacher.
"I
wanted to do something local as well as Teach
for America, and Beardsley School seemed like
the best thing to do," she said. "I've seen what
good they can do with the help the Unitarian
Church has given them."
Forbes'
hike will also raise funds for Beardsley and
TFA. Aiming to raise at least $2,181 to match
the hike's mileage, she has so far collected
about $1,700 in pledges.
Educators
at Beardsley and American Horse emphasize,
however, that the greatest benefit of Forbes'
hike will come from her online interactions with
their students.
"Our
students think about walking down the street,
but not about hiking through the wilderness,"
Beardsley third-grade
teacher Laurie
Giff said.
"Following
Avery's hike will broaden their horizons and
show them things they wouldn't see on a
daily basis."
More
than 1,500 miles away, American Horse
third-grade teacher Megan Kittisopikul
envisions a similar experience for
her students.
 "The majority of my
students have never been outside of South
Dakota," she said. "Avery's hike is a great way
to show them the different terrains of the
United States."
Posting
new lessons to her website from her iPhone
several times a month, Forbes' curriculum will
develop students' critical thinking and
quantitative
reasoning abilities.
While
younger students at the two schools may simply
seek to find Forbes' current whereabouts on a
map, older pupils will take on more complex
challenges. A pre-hike assignment, for example,
asks students to use a list of her hiking
apparatus to compute the total weight of those
items and to convert that number from pounds
to ounces.
"My
goal is to get them thinking about nature and
the outdoors and realize that the stuff that
they're learning in the classroom is usable in
all sorts of situations,"
Forbes said.
Students
from the two schools will also correspond with
each other on Forbes' website and through pen
pal exchanges.
Forbes
will incorporate her teaching into a brisk
hiking schedule. She will begin the trek on
March 31 at the southern terminus of the trail
in Georgia.
Accompanied
by two friends, she will walk as much as 20
miles per day en route to the trail's midpoint
in Harpers Ferry, W. Va.
She
will then fly to the northern endpoint of the
trail in Maine and cover the other half of the
trail with a cousin, hiking back south to
Harpers Ferry by September. Known in hiker's
jargon as "flip-flopping," this circular route
will allow Forbes to complete the trail without
having to endure chilly autumn climes in
New England.
Forbes
will travel lightly and live economically on the
trail. She will carry all clothes and
supplies--weighing a total of about 30
pounds--in her backpack. Most nights, she will
sleep outside in a hammock, covered by an
overhanging rain poncho, in case of a downpour.
For meals, she will predominately eat dehydrated
offerings such as sweet potato lentil stew and
tomato pea soup that she will prepare by boiling
in water over a
pocket stove.
Along
the way, she will encounter sub-freezing nights,
swarms of black flies, and even black bears. But
Forbes is more preoccupied by
another scenario.
"The
thing that I'm most afraid of is not finishing,"
she says. "I'm trying to prepare for every
eventuality so that I do finish the thing that
I've promised to so
many people."
But
Beardsley Principal Amy
Marshall has no doubt in
the outcome.
"She's
a role model for our students," she says. "She's
persevering. She's doing something that's not
happening in one day."
And
Forbes says she hopes her hike will not just
educate Beardsley and American Horse students,
but also inspire them to reach their own summits
of achievement.
"I
want to give the students a sense that no matter
how hard a goal is, you can accomplish it," she
says. "You just have to put in the hard work and
the dedication."
Pledges
to Forbes' hike of the Appalachian Trail can be
made at www.averyforbes.com
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