Reinventing Wilderness: How We Turned Our Campus into the Guadarrama National Park

Reinventing Wilderness: How We Turned Our Campus into the Guadarrama National Park While we usually turn to the wilderness, remote locations and mountains to teach the principles of outdoor leadership, the pandemic has taken away these scenarios and left us with the challenge of reinvention. Against our instincts and experiences, these circumstances have magically taught us to see opportunity where before we saw just a campus.

While we usually turn to the wilderness, remote locations and mountains to teach the principles of outdoor leadership, the pandemic has taken away these scenarios and left us with the challenge of reinvention. Against our instincts and experiences, these circumstances have magically taught us to see opportunity where before we saw just a campus.

Our school is based in an urban municipality with a population of more than 100,000 people, surrounded by residential areas, major highways and industrial areas. This term, the grounds have taken a break from being a school and have emerged as a “wilderness” campsite. A hosepipe becomes a mountain stream, a cemented area acts as a huge rock suitable for lighting stoves. The surprise of a wild rain storm as we “accidentally” forgot to turn off the garden sprinkling system; huge jets of water careful aimed at the group and our tents putting students under pressure to cope with wet weather, keep clothes dry and protect equipment. This has become the setting for our Duke of Edinburgh expeditions.

Our Adventurous Journeys consisted of some remarkable yet unexpected features, including Vereda Norte Street, Carrefour Shopping Centre, the nearby industrial site area and the pedestrian footbridge that crosses the M-603 motorway. Things started to become a little more similar to an expedition once we reached the gate at Monte de Valdelatas park. Here the industrial area abruptly turns into a 290-hectare green space, fenced in by major Madrid motorways, and yes, our micro-navigation skills were finally tested in true open terrain.

What remained strikingly similar to an old-fashioned wilderness approach was how we learnt experientially, practicing new key skills along the way. We experienced firsthand what it is like to look after ourselves and the other group members in truly cold conditions. We carried an actual weighted backpack, with the inseparable soreness that later comes with it. Likewise, we had to cook warm meals with cold hands, which produced real sensations in our stomachs. The feeling of sleeping on the ground with just the equipment that you are able to carry is unique and hard to replicate without doing just that.

This year the Duke of Edinburgh award is exceptionally meaningful to our students and our ICS community at large. Beyond the insights and learnings that will enable our students to qualify for their adventurous journeys and complete the award, we have all been witnesses to our capacity to overcome and confront uncertainty as well as navigate change. Great problems require great solutions; we must constantly adapt and push our creativity so we can continue to move forward. A brave thank you to the students, teachers, parents and management that chose to think big with us and see a wild spot where until now we could only see a campus.