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 Columbus, OH - Last week, eight students from the Bronx Lab School, a public high school in New York City, visited Ohio to bicycle approximately 250 miles of the Adventure Cycling Association’s Underground Railroad Bicycle Route.
The students rode an average of 40 miles per day and camped while enduring a stifling heat wave with temperatures often ranging from 95 to 100 degrees. They began their trip in Ripley, with stops in Mechanicsburg, West Jefferson, Delaware, and Fredericksburg before finishing in Oberlin. Along the way they visited safe houses, museums and college campuses, wrote a daily journal and had daily group discussions while earning academic credit for their trip.
According to Ohio volunteer Chuck Harmon, This was the fifth time that this high school has offered this experience to its students. Each year we have been a diverse group with respect to age, gender, race, and culture, and each year we discover that those differences are not important. When you share a 40-mile bicycle ride, in the heat and the hills while fighting a head wind, when you cook for each other, clean up after each other, get lost together, problem solve, laugh together, cry together and depend on each other, you become a family and you learn that what you have in common is so much more important than any differences that you might have. Furthermore, you learn this through a process of self-discovery and in a manner than can be transformational and permanent.
The students created a web site to document their trip. Please feel free to visit www.blurr.us to read their thoughts about this remarkable trip. For more information about the Underground Railroad Bicycle Route, including Ohio, visit http://www.adventurecycling.org/routes/undergroundrailroad.cfm
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| Photos Courtesy of Joaquin David |
http://www.edline.net/pages/bronx_lab_school
http://www.facebook.com/bronxlabschool
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
www.blurr.us
http://www.adventurecycling.org/routes/undergroundrailroad.cfm
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