MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C -- Logistics Marines navigated side by side with Brewster Middle School students, finding their way through the school’s terrain in a treasure hunt, here, Sept. 28.
Marines from Communications Company, Combat Logistics Regiment 27, 2nd Marine Logistics Group, helped set up and run a land navigation course for the seventh-grade Fox Team Geography class. Roughly 88 students and 15 Marines worked together in small groups to successfully navigate through a course using the Global Positioning System (GPS).
Athy M. Lionikis, Fox Team’s Geography teacher, coordinated this treasure hunt as a final event to the map skills unit that the class was studying.
Lionikis explained that the class learned mapping with latitude and longitude and showed their skills by creating pirate treasure maps. She also explained that it’s important that the children learn a modern day navigational system so they can apply the knowledge to their everyday lives.
Staff Sgt. Adam Cole, a Communications Company Marine who headed the Marines’ efforts, explained that the volunteers taught the children several classes throughout the week to prepare them for the final treasure hunt.
“It went pretty well,” Cole said. “The kids took off right away.”
Cole explained that the Marines taught them everything they needed to know about GPS so that the kids were prepared to navigate on their own in the future.
“If a kid is lost and they happen to have a map, they’ll know how to find their way home,” Cole said. “That’s what we’re hoping to pass on to these kids.”
Fox team teachers worked together to include lessons in each of their classes that pertained to the land navigation project.
“Working together like this has helped the school to achieve its improvement goals in the areas of reading and math,” Lionikis said.
According to Lionikis, this is the first time that Brewster Middle School has done anything like this.
Katrina N. Dutton, a seventh grader on Fox Team, was very excited about the event.
“I like it that the Marines are taking time off of work to come out here and do this activity with us,” Dutton exclaimed.
When asked why she put this event together, Lionikis replied “I’m doing this because I love teaching, and these kids are really an excellent group. They make you excited to do things like this for them.”