The Wheels

Thanks to the Barry and Suzanne Noorda donating funds to purchase a used nine-passenger Suburban which makes the field component of Mount Logan Discovery possible. A DVD player inside allows us to maximize learning during travel time. Their generosity literally kickstarted Discovery and made all of this possible.

Discovery, Inc has graciously provided a used nine-passenger Ford Excursion that will be used for River Rats in the summer and will enable us to provide field experiences for English Language Learners during the school year. The Excursion is also equipped with a DVD player. 

Schools don't think twice about writing grants for thirty laptop computers or ipads--grants of upwards of $35,000-$45,000.  To help understand how realistic acquiring vehicles would be, consider that both vehicles were purchased (a 1999 Suburban in 2008, a 2001 Excursion in 2009) for roughly $7,000 each or the equivalent of about five laptop computers--computers that would have been tossed in the dumpster after about four years.  In eight years, we put just over 50,000 miles on the Suburban and about 30,000 miles on the Excursion.  Here some fascinating stats:

> The Suburban transported 1,125 students to 2,115 destinations, providing about 15,485 individual field experiences for students.

> The Excursion transported 635 students to 1,430 destinations, providing about 9,445 individual experiences for ESL students.

> Grand Total: 1,755 students traveled to 3,545 destinations and participated in 24,930 individual field experiences.  Not bad for the cost of about ten laptop computers.