Get Outdoors, Join USD in the ON Campus Challenge
If you live in San Diego, it's inevitable that you like to spend much of your time outside, going to the beach, enjoying a hike, doing yoga or a multitude of other fun and healthy activities to take advantage of the city's great weather and location.
ON Campus Challenge
Mark Ceder, assistant director of University of San Diego's Outdoor Adventures, not only does this, but he's also hoping USD students and all campus community members will also sign onto oncampuschallenge.org, take a photo during at least a 30-minute outdoor activity and post it to help USD compete in the Outdoor Nation (ON) Campus Challenge, which began Sept. 6 and runs through Oct. 17.
Participants earn 10 points for every outdoor activity — 20 points for the initial entry — and each entrant is allowed a maximum of 50 points per day. The university is currently in sixth place among 57 competing colleges and USD is trying to climb higher on the leaderboard.
According to the ON Campus Challenge website, an eligible outdoor activity is “considered nature-based activities where an individual actually engages in the outdoors with the outdoor element being the focus of the activity. Eligible activities include: adventure racing, biking, bird-watching/wildlife-watching, geocaching, camping, climbing, fishing, hammocking, hiking, backpacking, hunting, restoration and trail maintenance, gardening (chores don’t count!), walking for fun and fitness, running/jogging, paddling, outdoor water activities, snow sports, outdoor yoga, skateboarding, outdoor clinics/training/events, outdoor games (frisbee, horseshoes, etc.) and stargazing. Traditional team sports are not eligible.”
Enjoying the Outdoors
Ceder said he first heard about the ON Campus Challenge through the Association of Outdoor Recreation and Education. A branch of the AORE is Outdoor Nation, which was seeking to promote outdoor recreation to college students. Sam Eller, a USD student, worked with Ceder to get USD signed up with colleges nationwide.
Outdoor Adventures is a popular resource for USD students, staff and alumni who want to take part in San Diego’s many outdoor activities. On his second day as USD’s President, Jim Harris, kayaked in La Jolla with OA’s student guides. Located on the Hahn University Center’s ground floor, OA runs multiple trips to places locally, around Southern California, and at times during the year, fun and education-oriented trips to national parks and sites outside California. OA also has equipment available for rental.
The ON Campus Challenge is designed to help raise awareness of the benefits of being outdoors and enjoying nature. For this challenge, USD has also partnered with the San Diego-based store of national outdoor recreation retailer, REI, to award some cool outdoor gear and prizes to participants.
Points can be earned in many ways. Ceder said his own outdoor activities include hikes, camping, and gardening to lighter fare such as spending time in a backyard hammock while watching birds and stargazing. Ceder said he’s been impressed so far by the posts displayed by USD students, showing them rock climbing, hiking, jogging and more. One USD sorority, Gamma Phi Beta, did a recent overnight camping trip to an avocado farm and posted photos of stargazing, setting up tents and enjoying s’mores.
Benefits of Outdoor Activity
These activities add to USD’s point total and reiterate Ceder's view of the overall benefit.
"We want people to be excited about San Diego and we want them to connect with this place during the time they are here [in college]," he said. "The benefits of outdoor recreation have been documented and studied around health and wellness. There's a Stanford study that talks about the brain-based benefits of being out in nature and this is an area where we'll see future studies, too. For us, we see college students developing habits they can continue for the rest of their lives. Wellness and being active is important to being a balanced individual."
Being in San Diego, it's a natural fit that USD — the only local university competing in the ON Campus Challenge — should have participants who thrive. "We're in San Diego. Students are at the beach, running, walking, they go to Sunset Cliffs to do yoga," Ceder said. "There are so many opportunities due to the various parks we have that are a 10-minute drive or a 20-minute bike ride from campus."
Activities on Campus
Participants don’t have to stay on campus, but if they do, there are many ways to get credit for their efforts. Many organize walks around the beautiful USD campus, swimming, yoga or other recreation sports. Associated Students has a "Get on the Grass" campaign that encourages students to spend some of their designated "dead" hours, between noon and 2 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursday, enjoying various activities such as Spikeball, frisbee, soccer, Slacklines and more.
Regardless of the outdoor activity, Ceder hopes to see all Toreros embrace the outdoors and help USD compete in this exciting challenge.
"We know you're already outside doing all of these great recreation activities, all we need you to do is sign up and take a picture of it and post your activities."
— Ryan T. Blystone