“The information is genuinely groundbreaking and will most certainly help others live.” - Melissa Weeks, FCS Faculty/Search & Rescue Volunteer

Search & Rescue Footwear and Tracking Research Project Conducted at Faith Christian School

Upper School Humanities Teacher, Melissa Weeks, serves as a Search & Rescue volunteer for the Search And Rescue Tracking Institute, SARTI, for the Virginia Department of Emergency Management. Our Faith Christian School community had a unique opportunity to participate in a research project she is a part of.

Research is a key aspect of SARTI’s goal as an institute, and Rob Speiden most assuredly embodies that goal. Mr. Speiden is a Virginia Lead Tracking Instructor for Search and Rescue volunteers for the Virginia Department of Emergency Management. For the last couple of years, Mr. Speiden has been gathering and analyzing foot and footwear data that aids searchers in finding and interpreting clues, such as human tracks, to inform and expedite finding missing persons. 

During a recent day-long visit at Faith Christian School, he had an opportunity to add significant data to his ongoing book project, “Sole Searching.” His work analyzes foot and footwear data to aid searchers in interpreting human tracks “so others may live.” 

SARTI members are familiar with Rob’s footwear research and have participated in adding data themselves. Some members are even assisting Rob via their particular expertise. For this experience, FCS volunteers assisted by leaving both their barefoot tracks and shod tracks in the sandbox for measuring. They also offered their footwear for Rob to measure. All data was collected on individual sheets and later incorporated into the overall calculations. 

Jesse Wise and Susan Bauer, father and daughter authors of The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home. And my own children.

Students, teachers, and staff had a great time involving themselves in the project. Two of the science/math teachers happily dug deeper into Rob’s research with curious questions, and the Class of 2023 enjoyed the special treat of having Mr. Speiden as their guest speaker. 

The information is genuinely groundbreaking and will most certainly help others live.

“What a pleasure to see the students from 7-12 grades, alongside faculty and staff, actively involved in footwear research that will serve to help the entire Virginia Search and Rescue (SAR) community save lives. The entire data-gathering experience saw students and teachers inquiring about how math and science work together to produce conclusions that are applicable in real world emergencies. The discussions about SAR also produced questions about predictive models of missing person behavior and search theory. We all learned from each other.”-Melissa Weeks