In semester 2 I did Muir as one of my electives. Muir is an outdoor ed subject where you do orienteering, archery, and snorkeling and there is a camp at the end of the subject in Rotto. My goals for this subject was to learn about orienteering, like knowing how to navigate my way by myself and having lots of fun snorkeling. I believe I achieved these goals.
Archery
We did archery every Friday morning on the school oval. Each week we would do something a bit harder so we could improve at a steady pace. I think this really worked well for everyone in our class. The weather was a bit rainy for some of the classes so we should have to move the equipment to next too the swimming pool so we could have more cover. The rain did make it a bit harder to shoot but it was also so fun at the same to have that challenge. The first time we did it I only hit the target 2 and I was really frustrated and didn’t enjoy it as much as I always missed but I came back the next lesson and gave it an other go and each week I got better and better. I would say that I was very resilient when participating as I think it took me a bit longer than others to get the hang of it. The part that I enjoyed was at the end when we did some stuff activities, we put a balloon in the middle of the target and we had to pop it and it would make a loud bang when it popped. Form archery I learnt that archery is a scary skill and it takes lots of practice like lots of different skills.
Snorkelling
My favourite part of Muir was the snorkeling. Through out the subject we did swimming in our school pool for practice how we use our snorkels and fins. Practicing dives down and coming back up and blowing out. We also learnt the signals to use while snorkelling so we would be safe when we were in a real environment. It took me awhile to get the signals but I got it in the end as there were important to know. then we went out to Coogee shipwreck and snorkelled around. When we got there it was a very cold and very windy day. We got into the water and it was freezing but everyone still got in and swam. My buddie was Teleisha, she isn’t the best swimming so I helped her out a lot with fixing her snorkel, making sure she was comfortable and we did really well for such bad conditions. We didn’t get to see much as the swell was very strong so we only got to get some small fish. The next week we were off the Rotto for a 1 night camp. We went snorkeling at 2 different beautiful bays. The first one was little parakeet bay and it was a beautiful day too. The sun and perfect temp but as we got to the water everyone realised how cold the water was but everyone still got in and we went in twice for this bay throughout the day. The next day we went to the basin and saw even more amazing fish. It was both very sunny day so we had to be unsafe, I brought a lot of sunscreen and zinc and always had to stay hydrated. We saw so many amazing fish, shells, stingrays and even 2 octopus. It was such a wonderful experience as our class was so supportive of each other and everyone always checking everyone was okay and feeling safe. On the second day we went out for a long snorkel but the swell saw getting quite strong and I could tell that a lot of people were getting tired as we had to swim against the swell. I would always have to help everyone get through and show them the safest ways to get though so they wouldn’t get slammed about the reefs. I believe it took a leadership roll when we were in Rotto as I felt really comfortable snorkeling more then the others. I think our group was really good at effective communication not only at rotto but even in the water while snorkeling. Everyone would keep asking everyone is they were okay and comfortable. I also would say that everyone was very resilient because the water was really really cold and we all got in a pushed through the cold and it was all worth it as we saw amazing things.
Orienteering
One of the other main subject we focused on was orienteering. We did a lot of work in class learning about reading maps and understanding campus and how to all linked up to finding spot. I found orienteering very hard to understand but I would always put myself in groups with people that knew what they were doing so I could learn from them and this help me a lot. We went out to lots of different national parks to practice our skills and every time we went out I would learn even more and more. Every day we left the school to the parks it was great sunning weather so would all wore hats and lots of sunscreen. I used a lot of effective communication as I would always ask my teammates that knew what they were so they could explain it to me so I could understand like them. I am very grateful for my great teams mates for having patience with me. I would also say we used resilience again because when we would be looking for a marker and we knew we were in the right area and we couldn’t find it we would just keep on looking until we keep even though some took us a long time and they were right in front of us every time. When we went out of school to the cool parks we saw amazing trees and plants and we even saw lizards. I really enjoyed leaving school and doing the hard tracks.