(FOX 17) — With kids all across the country off of school, teachers are looking for a way to keep them engaged from home.
"The idea kind of came about when I realized that it'd be hard to keep the kids accountable when they're at home," Luke Ambrose, a fifth grade teacher at North Holland elementary said. "They're all on different schedules so I wanted to do something that drew them to the computer every day."
That's when Ambrose combined two things, his student's love for YouTube and his love for the outdoors to create a video channel of his outdoor adventures.
"If they were coming to their computer every day to check their YouTube channel then maybe they'd be checking their school email and their classroom work as well," he added. "It's worked pretty well so far."
During this quarantine, Ambrose and his wife, a fourth grade teacher in the Grand Rapids Christian school district, went back to Kentucky where he grew up. With so much nature around him, he decided adventure videos would be the best way to intrigue his students.
"It's a chance to cover some topics or subjects that are near and dear to me and may not be something these kids get a chance to experience every day. It's been a nice way to blend these two parts of my life together."
The episodes so far have included everything from how to build a birdhouse to lessons on rivers and boats, all with a lot of humor involved.
"The question I always get asked is when the right time to buy a boat is," he said in one of his videos, "I tell them, 'always get it when there's a sail on it.'"
With so many kids unable to leave their house, Ambrose thought it would be a way to make kids smile and hopefully bring some positivity to their days.
"This is my Aunt Neena," he said in another video, "she's a carpenter, not a carpenter aunt."
"If they can login and check out one of the videos for 10 to 15 minutes and feel like they're out of their house and feel like they're on an adventure, then that's what's important," he said via FaceTime.
While he originally planned to do one video per week, Ambrose has now set a lofty goal of posting a video every day next week.
"As long as I'm able to do it and able to get out and have new things to teach about, I'll keep doing it," he added.
You can find a link to Ambrose's adventure videos by clicking here.
