The class of 2025 River Fellows pitched their projects to a small, supportive audience. The pitches were impressive and a testament to all the hard work (paired with some fun and silliness) that took place during the week.
Below is a link to view the video pitches:
On Wednesday, the sophomore river fellows stayed at GPS to further develop their project work. They began by sharing their current ideas with the group and presenting their thoughts to everyone. After that, they began to work on developing a “customer” that their project would help. Although the customers were not based on real people, their problems were issues that many people could potentially face. And their projects are going to hopefully be the customers’ solutions!! Through using structured templates, the river fellows narrowed down their project to an attainable, yet effective solution that could solve their customer’s problem. By the end of the day, they felt much better about their project and its purpose.
Project ideas are brewing at the coffee shop!! Due to inclement weather the river fellows plan to the raft Hiwassee was cancelled :(
We practiced our pitch skills by pitching the idea of going to a coffee shop for the afternoon. It was a success and we went to culture coffee to work on our projects! Although plans were changed, we still had a lot of fun and let's just say a lot of singing took place 🎤 .
The nerves were high as they approached the river, and then they were off! With the teachers in one raft and the girls in another, they made their way down the rapids. Many screams and splashes later, everyone returned to the cabin ready to tell the stories of their brave adventures.
We began our Friday by doing journal entries that prompted us to question what we had learned, how we had grown, and what we could explore next. It was a great way for us to reflect and share our thoughts on our Tucker River Fellows experience so far. We then got on the bus to head to the Conasauga River, which is a little over an hour away. During our bus drive, we stopped to see a wetland because we had been learning about them throughout the week. We saw a Red Winged Blackbird at the wetland, which gave us an example of an animal that lives there. It was a great way for us to visualize a wetland and understand more about its purpose for us and our environment. After seeing the wetland, we got back on the bus to finish our ride. The end of the drive was a bit bumpy, but we made it and were excited to start snorkeling! The water was clear and the scenery around it was beautiful. We wanted to get into the water as soon as possible, so we changed into our wetsuits quickly. Once we suited up and got an understanding of how snorkels work, we were ready to dive under. We started downstream and slowly swam upstream. In the water, there were many different species of fish, including darters, hog suckers, log perch, and minnows. We were very happy to see this specific log perch because it isn’t found anywhere else in the U.S. The majority of the fish were small, but we did see some bigger sized fish in the deeper waters. We spent so much time in the water, so we had a late lunch and then looked at some insects in the water, such as mayflies and stoneflies hiding under rocks. After looking at these insects, we got dressed and prepared to leave. When we were ready to go, we hopped on the bus and ended our day’s adventure on the ride home.
We started off our adventure full Thursday by meeting in the River fellows room and getting a physics lesson from Mr. Haynes about polarized glasses. Then we got on the bus and started our journey to Chickamauga creek to meet with the aquarium to go seine fishing. Once we reached our destination we met Dr. George and David and started getting all our waders on and got a demonstration of how to catch the fish with the seine.
