One of the classes that I just love to teach is how to use a compass. Today's Staying Found class, offered to kids ages 11 to 14, had five participants, plus a grandmother. The first half of the class was spent learning the parts of a compass, how to read the dial and set bearings, and then how to follow a compass and get to a destination, first by sighting ahead, and then by learning how to navigate around objects.
The second half our our program was spent using the compasses and 30m tapes to follow directions that would create a shape when completed (if done correctly). This is a wonderfully challenging activity: participants have to know how to set bearings on a compass, how to line up the compass, how to follow the bearing, and how to measure.
Grandma partnered with her grandsons for the shape challenge.
These three boys (two brothers and a cousin) had a blast!
They wanted to do shape after shape.
It was a perfect autumn morning for this exercise. we all started off with warm clothing (including a fur hat), but after half an hour in the toasty sun, layers started to come off.
The hour and a half just whizzed by, and we ran out of time, so we will be offering a Staying Found, Part 2 later on, in which participants will learn how to read maps, how to use the map and compass together, how to bushwhack from point A to point B from a bearing on the map, and how to not get lost if one doesn't have a map or compass.
GPS units are great, but what do you do if your batteries die, or you cannot get a signal? This is why being able to use a compass is a great skill to have. Would you like to learn? Give us a call - we will train you right.
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