Target practice is a bit different for Outdoor Education virtual students as they are learning archery skills by utilizing objects at home that can be substituted for a bow and arrow. 

“We’re all learning to adapt by whatever means necessary,” teacher Tim Brennan said. “Unfortunately, in this case, that means learning archery at home – which is a very hands on activity. Since students at home dont have the resources to learn ths the ordinary way, I’ve asked them to record a video about the eleven steps to archery success. They basically have to act out what you would do if you had the supplies and how you would do it.”

For freshman Ananya Kulkarn, this is one virtual lesson that falls short of the real thing.

“It is pretty unfortunate that we are learning archery virtually,” Kulkarn said. “It seems like a really fun thing to do and to learn about, but learning archery virtually really slims down the list of activities you can do to learn archery. This was not what I expected when I learned, at the start of the year, we were doing archery. I hoped that the COVID numbers would have become less threatening and we could have learned archery in person.”

It’s not an easy task attempting to display one’s archery skills virtually, but sophopre Leanna Shirazi recommends students take what they can from the archery unit. 

“Learning archery virtually is definitely a challenge because we don’t have the supplies we need to do it at home which sucks so we have to learn it by watching videos and not physically doing it,” Shirazi said. “This is definitely not what I expected but I’ll take what I can get because it’s honestly better than not learning at all.”