Princeton-Blairstown Center

Princeton-Blairstown Center (PBC) uses a character education curriculum designed in collaboration with Project Adventure, a leader in the international adventure learning movement. The PBC curriculum is a multi-year program conducted primarily in the classrooms of collaborating inner-city schools that have chosen to enhance their school climate. 

PBC facilitates classroom-based courses throughout the academic year that are modeled on the principles of experiential education.  Programming includes several trips to the Blairstown campus for outdoor experiences and activities.  In addition, expeditions to the Princeton University Campus introduce our school partners to life on a college campus.  The overarching goals of this curriculum are to engage students in activities that build community, develop leadership skills, teach conflict resolution strategies and practice setting and accomplishing goals. 

Trained PBC staff facilitate a briefing and debriefing process before and after each activity. A  debrief answers three questions: 1. What happened? 2. So what? 3. Now what?  This kind of direct engagement and reflection reinforces lessons learned at each session and expands the participants' understanding of how to use these lessons in other areas of life.  Various activities reinforce the same lessons until the entire group demonstrates proficiency.  All subsequent activities and lessons build on previous learning and skills.

A sample of PBC activities can be found here.

The kind of learning that PBC promotes in the classroom is based on the principles of social and emotional learning.   In December of 2008, the Collaborative for Academic Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL)  found that “[Social Emotional Learning] programs yielded multiple benefits…and were effective in both school and after-school settings and for students with and without behavioral and emotional problems".

Additional information on Social Emotional Learning (SEL) core skills (.pdf), objectives and sample activities for year one can be found here.

Below are some sample objectives for the first year:

• Understanding your impact on a group
• Demonstrating empathy
• Having fun appropriately
• Understanding how choices are made
• Understanding active and passive decision making
• Understanding how decisions change outcomes
• Working cooperatively
• Setting and achieving group goals

Here are some sample objectives for the second year:

• Understanding how having self-respect betters your community
• Understanding what community means to you
• Understanding what it is to be a good community member by helping others
• Understanding what it means to be focused
• Understanding the need to follow directions
• Demonstrate an ability to listen to others

To discuss opportunities for a multi-year school-based program in your community, please contact Dinah Jordan at djordan@princeton.edu.

"I am so very proud of the work that Princeton-Blairstown Center has done with the students from my school. During the time that the organization has been in our school, the students have been getting to know each other better by forming relationships, and they have been learning how to effectively solve problems. During the sessions, our students have been participating in thought provoking and challenging activities that require them to act as a team and to collectively reach a common goal. As a result of participating in these activities, our students are learning how to trust others. They are now becoming less critical of one another and they understand the importance of supporting their peers in order to accomplish a final goal. These are all qualities that one must embody if one wishes to be successful in the business world.

It is because of this great accomplishment with our students, that I am very pleased with the work the Princeton-Blairstown Center has done. It is clear that the strategies that they have learned are enabling them to do better academically as well.

This program has been a great asset to our building. I certainly look forward to a continued relationship."   – Principal, Newark Deep Partner Middle School

"I learned to keep trying and never give up" Trenton 8th Grader

"I learned that I have to trust myself more" - Trenton 6th grader

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