Outside With Your Kids Since 1974

Gloucester Adventure Camp

Outside with your kids since 1976...

GMS Adventure Camp fosters a sense of wonder, environmental stewardship, and critical thinking skills. The open spaces of Essex County serve as a living classroom for campers to learn, appreciate and understand the natural resources of the greater Cape Ann area.

Kids at Salt Island

GMS Adventure Camp Philosophy

Full Value Contract
Our Camp utilizes the “Full Value Contract,” a Project Adventure, Inc. learning strategy created by James Schoel and used around the world with adults and children alike. The principles of the Contract, listed below, provide the basis for our group and individual behavior development.

During the first two days of camp each group negotiates the language and commitments to cover their needs, including an agreement to honor the contract. This gives the campers and counselors a tool that can be used when planning and reviewing experiences, and when there is a problem to solve.

Full Value Contract Principles:

  1. Participation
  2. Safety
  3. Goals and achievement
  4. Honesty
  5. Let Go of negatives
  6. Caring
  7. Fun

Experiential Education
Experiential learning, an educational model that creates safe environments where a child learns by doing, is comprised of self-initiated individual participation. Experiential learning has been proven to correspond with tangible personal change and growth.

GMS engages experiential education practices by striving to facilitate learning through providing an emotionally protected, physically safe, organized, non-competitive, camp atmosphere in which campers can explore choice and challenge.

Environmental Education
The Gloucester Museum School Adventure Camp’s Environmental Education facet aims to connect campers to the natural world. This dual pronged approach of education and daily exposure to nature promotes environmental stewardship in our campers.
We educate campers about local ecosystems and the impact of people on the natural environment by helping them develop eco-friendly practices such as recycling and producing less litter.

Challenge by Choice
Our job at GMS camp is to provide campers with a diverse array of fun challenges, all of which are designed to promote creative thinking, problem solving skills, self-esteem, and social ability. Whether the challenge is rock climbing, rowing, or playing an interactive trust-building game, campers are given the responsibility of choosing how they want to engage each challenge. All campers are positively encouraged to take on each and every challenge we present, but we refrain from any form of coercion, peer pressure, or persuasion of any kind. All campers are, however, encouraged to support other campers in their personal challenge by choice, whether they determine to undertake any particular challenge or not.

The Challenge by Choice philosophy creates thought-provoking learning opportunities and personal insight into the question of appropriate risk taking, understanding mutual support, developing self-confidence, comprehension of real leadership, and effective team-work.

No matter what the camper decides about a challenge on any given day, all campers still expected to participate in the daily camp activities of their expedition group. For obvious safety reasons, they are not allowed to leave the group setting.

The concept of Challenge by Choice is a fundamental philosophy of experiential education and one of the guiding principles pioneered by Project Adventure, Inc.