In this unit of Muir, we have covered several topics and activities, these included orienteering, archery, and snorkelling. The first activity in this unit was orienteering. We first learned the fundamental skills of orienteering, this included learning how to use a compass and how to put Fred in the shed. We played several games learning how to correctly read a baring and how to use a map. After we started to gain the skills, we needed to orienteer we started measuring the baring for the school course where in teams we tried to complete the course without getting soaked. Once we were more capable of orienteering, we went out to piney lakes and manning park to complete a more challenging course in teams. During the orienteering course, we did archery during single periods. This was a great experience to try something new and different. We had a lovely instructor Mary who encouraged us just to give it a go and try our best which is exactly what I did. Towards the end of the unit, I was really getting the hang of it and getting a few bullseyes. My favourite part of archery was when we got to shoot the balloons on the target because I was good at it and it was fun to try something new. Another part I really enjoyed was the sky shooting which was pretty epic to just shoot and let your arrow fall. While I couldn’t go snorkelling at Coogee or go on the Rottnest trip due to my knee surgery, I could participate in the snorkelling in the pool which was alright. We learned the basic snorkelling skills needed to go out in the open water. We learned to duck dive and how to clear our masks from the water.
Capabilities
Some of the capabilities that I developed in this course were organisation, collaboration, and effective communication. These three capabilities were essential for this course as I needed to be organised with all the correct equipment for snorkelling in the pool and making sure I was at the bus at the right time. Collaboration was important for orienteering as we were in teams, and we needed to make sure we were going the right way by communicating and working together to do so. This capability also ties in with effective communication because if you don’t say anything or if you say the wrong thing then you may get very lost. So it was important that our group collaborated effectively and not one person was doing everything and making sure we were clearly communicating with each other and working together to get the task done and to find the orienteering marker. We also used effective communication when out snorkelling by using signals so we can understand what was going on.
Leave no trace.
Leaving no trace was important as we went to many places, and we needed to make sure we are doing our part to keep the environment clean. When we went to Jorgenson, we made our own bin bags and we made sure all our rubbish went into those bin bags and then back to school with us. Before we left Jorgenson we swept the floor making sure we took away more rubbish than we brought with us. This is just a small part we play in keeping our environment clean. Another part of leaving no trace was that it was important to not take things away from any of the environments we visited, this included not touching the coral when snorkelling, spraying and brushing our feet when going into Piney Lakes. This was important to make sure we didn’t bring bad bacteria into the reserve. Feeding animals was a no go as we don’t want them to depend on our food, and there are many risks involved in feeding wild animals. When we went walking we walked on paths and rodes to avoid stepping on vegetation to try to preserve it. We kept our voices down so we would annoy other people and families when we went out.
I enjoyed the Muir course this year and I learned many skills.