This year in outdoor education we focused on five main topics, this included snorkelling, orienteering, archery, rock climbing, and bush cooking. At the start of term 4 we went on camp to Honey Moon pool in Collie, during this camp we showed our skills in rock climbing, bush cooking and other team activities which included white water rafting.
SNORKELLING
COMMUNICATION:
As apart of our snorkelling unit we went to Rottnest for a day where we worked on skills such as duck diving, clearing our snorkels, swimming through tunnels and equalizing our ears. We had a buddy system which required us having a partner we would stay with the whole time, if ever we got into trouble or needed help we had to use our signals to communicate effectively.
When we went to Rottnest we went out in larger groups where communication was more important, we were in an unfamiliar area where there were more risks. In pairs we had to brief the group of one aspect of SAFE SNORKEL, this gave us a sense of responsibility and we had to communicate successfully to benefit the whole group.
ORIENTEERING
TEAMWORK/COLLABORATION
in orienteering teamwork and collaboration are important because it allows everyone to work together in a safe environment where everyone’s ideas are valued. Most of the time we were in groups of 2-3, we chose these based on our fitness level and our skill sets. For example, if someone was good at pacing but not so good at bearings then they would go together. When we went to the manning park course we were racing so it was more important to for us all to collaborate effectively.
RESILIENCE
During orienteering we had to be very resilient to not giving up on finding the point. We had to trust ourselves in our bearings and our map reading skills. Working as a team also required us to be resilient with one another, we had to be open to new ideas and to challenge each other to work our best. Sometimes on the challenging courses we needed to be resilient when finding the marker, because they would be either in a bigger radius or in difficult spots to find.
CAMP
ROCK CLIMBING
Before we went on camp we had previously worked on rock climbing at school, we practised belaying, climbing and knot tying. On camp we also took part in abseiling and the rock climbing courses were significantly harder. In rock climbing I used resilience as it was a challenging skill that I had to persevere to achieve. We had to retry doing each wall a few times in a different way.
BUSH COOKING
At camp we did bush cooking each night, we had to organise our group and bring all of our food. We decided to freeze our meat so that it wouldn’t go off for the second night. We also had to create a good fire to last for the night, and to burn down the wood to ashes.
WHITE WATER RAFTING
During white water rafting we had to be creative to find new routes through the rocks, when everyone was getting stuck at a certain point we made new ways. At one point we also got to climb through a cave in some rocks which was pretty tight and was a good experience. Charlotte and I also helped people get to their boats when they drifted away so we were creative with how we took them back to their rafts.
LEAVE NO TRACE
- Plan ahead and prepare, we prepared our food by freezing the meat this meant that we didn’t waste any of our food. We planned ahead when deciding who was going to bring what food and packaging the snacks.
- Travel and camp on durable surfaces, we camped on places that are designated for camping and tried to avoid any nature that we could ruin.
- Dispose of waste properly, we put all of the waste in the bins and did a emu bob before we left, we picked up the micro-waste that was left around the campsite.
- Leave what you find, no one brought any wildlife back from the camp.
- Minimise camp impacts, we were conscious to leave everything in its natural habitat and not bring anything home.
- Respect wildlife, we didn’t feed any of the animals that were there and we made sure we didn’t ruin any of the wildlife, we tried to avoid going through the bush.
- Be considerate of your hosts and other visitors, we were considerate to other people who were staying.