Definition of adventure education.Outdoor adventure education is a many faceted field. An outdoor adventure is an activity that can be a single or multi day experience outside that involves varying levels of risk taking and that does not have a guarantee of success. An outdoor adventure education experience has risk, no promise of success, and has a learning outcome designed to challenge students physically and mentally. The group process that is key to the successful completion of an OAE experience provides students with many tools that they will use throughout their life. Students will learn how to work with different individuals that have different morals, ethics and process of completing goals. Communication, compromise, empathy and critical thinking are key skills that students will be introduced to on an OAE experience that they can use for the rest of their lives. As students form as a group in the back country they have the unique opportunity to create a society that is is centered around the group's ideals that is free from the outside world. An OAE facilitator who lets a group decide what they want to stand for as a community can be incredibly powerful experience for everyone involved, and is part of what makes OAE extremely attractive to me. The positive transformation of a student from the beginning to the end of an OAE experience can be utterly astounding. A student’s self worth, self confidence, and sense of community can be greatly influenced by a successful OAE experience. Students can walk away from an OAE experience with higher levels of, self esteem, self reliance, and ability to face and overcome difficult challenges in their lives. Traveling through the backcountry is only half of the experience for me. The interpersonal growth and connections that are possible on an AOE experience is the second half of what I love as an adventure educator.