Helen Thayer has skied to the magnetic North Pole, lived among wolves in Alaska, kayaked in the Amazon, walked across the Sahara, and represented three countries in track and field. She is the author of Polar Dream and Three Among the Wolves and the recipient of countless awards, including the esteemed Vancouver Award from the Explorers Club. Thayer was names “One of the Great Explorers of the 20th Century” by National Geographic and is the president of Adventure Classroom, an international educational project. For more information visit
www.helenthayer.com.
“Thayer is an explorer-naturalist of a breed that in a modern age is more threatened than wolves. She is not a millionaire, an academic, a government scientist, or the sponsored face of a large corporation. In the beginning, she wasn’t eve a writer. Instead, she’s a self-taught, self-financed, and self-effacing woman whose chief interest in life has been to do difficult and interesting things. Her adventures are a mixture of climb-it-because-it’s there feats of endurance and quasi-scientific efforts to satisfy her own curiosity.”
–The Washington Post
About Adventure Classroom
Adventure Classroom is a not-for-profit organization founded by Helen Thayer, an internationally recognized explorer. She uses her expeditions to the four corners of the world as metaphors to teach and inspire students. The program began in 1988 after Helen became the first woman to walk alone to any of the world's Poles. She has since spoken to over one million students in schools throughout the USA. She, and her husband Bill, continue to develop educational programs through expeditions to remote regions of the world.
How Adventure Classroom Began
In 1986 Helen Thayer, after spending many years as an accomplished high altitude climber and international athlete, stood on the 24,590 foot summit of Peak Communism in Tajikistan. It was on this summit that the seed that became Adventure Classroom was sown.
In Helen's words here is how it all began: "As I stood in the thin air of the summit on a clear day I looked east into China, south into Afghanistan, and west across Tajikistan. I marveled at the 360-degree view of rugged mountains that fell away to distant horizons and knew the time had come to share my experiences with others. Until that day my photography and writing were filed away. Now was the time for others to share the places I traveled, the exhilaration I experienced as I met challenges head on, set goals, planned, and pushed onward with the resolve to succeed. An educational program for students was the answer.
http://www.adventureclassroom.org
As heavy dark clouds approached the mountain I began my descent to base camp. Soon the mountain was engulfed in the fury of a black, howling storm. I fought my way downward struggling to keep on a course that would lead me to safety. After several tense hours I stumbled into camp. In the protection of base camp I thought about my idea of creating educational programs. Over a cup of hot chocolate I decided on the name
Adventure Classroom
. I would use my future expeditions as metaphors to create educational programs for students. The program would inspire young people to reach beyond themselves and live life without limits and plan to win!