OUTDOOR EDUCATION

By Allen Lee

May 2-4 2011

On the bus just arriving at Outdoor Education.

Introduction

I was very excited to go to Outdoor Education Class on May 2, 2011 at Covenant Harbor in Lake Geneva, Illinois.  We left the school at 9:00am and took a bus ride that was two hours long.  We got off the bus and took our luggage to our cabins. The cabins were very nice and very clean.  I picked the bottom bunk and Louis was on the top bunk.  I roomed with Brandon, Michael, A.J., Kory, William, Arch, Matthew, Joe, Arif, and Louis.  After we took our luggage to the cabins we listened to a lot of instructions about the camp rules and guidelines.

New games

We then played some big group games.  A couple of the games we played were Brawl Ball, Everybody’s It Tag, and Blob Tag. The first activity we did was Brawl Ball. This is a game where we would grab or kick the ball. There were 2 lines and they would throw the ball into the center. They would call your number and you would run to get the ball. It was violent because everyone was trying to get the ball. You would get a point by getting the ball into the other team’s goal. The next game we played was Blob Tag. This is where one person is it until someone gets tagged. If they got tagged someone would join the group of people. It got hard because almost everybody was getting tagged. The last game we did was Everybody’s it tag. Everyone started to run around and tried to get each other. During these games I thought they were really exciting. I was excited because I have never played them and I felt challenged. The game I liked best was the Blob Tag because I thought that was the most fun.    We also played the boat game.  We started on a platform and had one rope. The goal was to swing the team over to the other side without touching the “water” and “alligators”.  When the games were over we had lunch.

Low ropes

After lunch we went to the Low Ropes Teams Course.   This was a team building activity.   We needed to get each other through a spider web maze.  There were nine boxes that we each needed to touch. This was really hard because we had our hands connected and we couldn’t let hands go. Everybody needed to touch a box at least once. It was hard because we just wanted to go across everything. If one person touched one rope we needed to start over.  We eventually got through it.  After the spider web we needed to write what we did that half of the day.

In addition, we did the Help Maze. The Help Maze was where you needed to go through a course blindfolded. No one understood what you were supposed to do. We knew that we needed to get through the course but it didn’t stop and we didn’t know that we needed to just ask for help. At first I was confused but then I eventually got it. Some people didn’t get that so they would just keep going in a circle. Some people went around so many times they thought it was one big maze. Another thing we did was the spider web.

Insects

Another thing we did was Entomology. This is where we learned about different kinds of bugs like beetles, moths, spiders, and praying mantis.  There were so many different bugs in the room that we were in. They were not living but were displayed in a case.  We played a little game that we had a paper bug on our back. We needed to try to guess the bugs with clues. One thing I learned was how a moth was different than a butterfly.  This was cool to see the insects up close.

Survival

The activities we did in survival were fire building and shelter building. During this I learned on how to set up the fire, and how to keep it burning. To make the fire we needed to collect sticks that were all different sizes.  The small sticks were used to get the fire going and the bigger sticks were used to keep the fire going.  The most useful thing I learned was not to put leaves into the fire because that would make it smoky. Another activity we did was to build a shelter.  We had to collect large sticks from the woods.  We leaned the big sticks up against the tree and built off of that to make a shelter.  We used more sticks for the roof.  An important thing I learned is that you can’t live without shelter for more than 3 hours because of severe weather like really cold or hot weather.

Archery

On our second day the first activity we did was archery. It was a cold morning and we were outside in the field. I already knew how to shoot the arrow because of other experiences that I have done in the past. I felt that I did really well shooting. They told us about the bow and arrow. They also talked about how to use it. I was out there for like an hour. I shot some bull’s-eye. I learned not to go past the shooting point when people are firing. I would need to wait until everybody was done shooting the arrows to go pick the arrow up. One of the activities we did during this class is to see which person who would get closest to different sizes of the targets.

Nature Awareness

In this we learned about nature. We played some games. We had our hands tied together but they taped it around our thumbs so we couldn’t use them. We needed to pick things up just as we were being normal. With having no thumbs things are much harder to do.  We acted like we were a squirrel or a chipmunk. I would never want to be an animal because it is a lot harder to pick things up. They threw candy out in the grass and we tried to get it. When we tried to pick it up it was very challenging. We also had a scavenger hunt with nature. There were clues all around camp and we needed to go to each one.

Orienteering

The next thing we did was orienteering. This is were we learned how to use a compass. We had a compass and we needed to go into the forest. We needed to find numbers so we know that we were going the right way. Before this we learned how to turn the dial to the degrees we needed to turn it to. Then we had to follow these clues to the next place where we were supposed to go. This was a little confusing at first because I kept turning the dial wrong. Eventually I got use to using a compass.

High ropes/climbing wall

My all time favorite thing we did was ropes course and the climbing wall. The first thing I did was the ropes course.  It was huge. There were a lot of different things we could go to. There were different sections, like a ladder, a plain rope, and a long hard bar.  We had the option to hang up side down if we wanted to. I ended up hanging upside down.  IT WAS SOOOO FUN!! I also did the climbing tower. This was even more fun than the high ropes. I climbed up the rock wall to the top of the tower. There was also a net to climb on to get to the top but I ddin’t do that one. Once I got to the top, I got all strapped in to the zip line. Then I was off! I was floating through the air. This was so cool.

Closing

For this experience I had a great time. A couple of my favorite thing we did was the high ropes course and the climbing wall. Those two were my favorites because I thought those were the most fun things I did while I was there. I thought that the whole thing at outdoor Ed was really cool.

Pictures

This is me playing carpet ball:

This is everyone making smores on the last night:

Here are the people I sat with during the meals:

Here is everyone in the grade: