Pathways to Possibilities (PTP)

PTP is a youth-centered program that uses nature and the humanities (creative writing and photography) to help students reflect deeply and build their confidence as they create digital stories. Working together, teachers and a professional photographer facilitate conversations and provide direct instruction that equips and empowers youth to tell their stories with the world. The culminating event is a community celebration where students share their work, including photography connected to a 6-Word Memoir describing their feelings, thinking, and physical responses when in contact with the natural, built, or human environment. A Heart to Heart letter is a conversation between students and a personified animal/plant, or object such as a bird cautioning visitors to care for Lake Michigan to support their year-round water supply or a frog educating humans on how their actions impact habitat health.