Skip To Main Content

Switchboard:

Switchboard:

Ropes and Challenges

Located in Potter’s Forest, the Ropes and Challenges program at Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) involves outdoor group activities and includes both high and low elements.

The curriculum is based on the experiential learning model and takes a sequential approach in activities. It is designed to help individuals and groups of students strengthen their teamwork, communication, and problem-solving skills.

Key Curriculum Components

  • The Full Value Contract brings structure to the activities and emphasizes physical and emotional safety as well as responsibility for all of the participants.
  • Activities allow participants to make discoveries on their own.
  • In processing, thoughtful and guided reflection before/during/after activities helps students make meaning.
  • Through generalization, students apply new skills in other settings like in school, at home, and in the community.

Because the program's emphasis is on skills development and emotional and physical safety, only groups that have completed at least six to eight prep sessions with a trained MPS ropes facilitator may come to the course.

Course Staffing and Training

MPS Ropes and Challenges facilitators must participate in a weeklong training. Topics include:

  • Basic technical skills for safe operation of low and high elements
  • Belaying skills
  • Processing skills needed for effective and safe facilitation
  • Safety procedures at the course
  • Ground and school-based activities that can be used during prep sessions with student groups

History of Ropes and Challenges

Located on the north end of Whitnall Park and Boerner Botanical Gardens, Potter’s Forest is the home of the Ropes and Challenges course.

In 1994, a collaborative effort involving MPS staff from the Departments of Curriculum and Instruction, Special Education and Supportive Services, School-to-Work, Community Recreation, Facilities and Maintenance, and Insurance and Risk Management was organized to develop a new ropes and challenges education program for MPS students and staff. After a tour of the site, the selection committee immediately chose Potter's Forest as the prime location for the course. In the spring of 1995, the first elements were installed, and staff began training. Program implementation with students began in the fall of 1995.

Since its inception, the MPS Ropes and Challenges course has served more than 60,000 students, including students with significant developmental disabilities. One of the unique features of the course is that it was designed to be accessible to students with a variety of special needs, including students with orthopedic impairments, visual impairments, and cognitive delays.

Read a more detailed history of the land and Potter’s Forest.

Due to risk management and liability issues, the course at Potter’s Forest is open ONLY to MPS traditional schools and MPS instrumentality charter schools.