Outdoor Ed Classes

[lifer]

We're trying to get some ideas for new Outdoor Education classes. Currently we have loads of classes like water ecology, volcanoes, creepy crawlies, terrific trees, orienteering, pioneering, animal senses, drumming and star lab, to name a few. Anyone have any really cool classes you use at your camp ?

Thanks !

[drink the wild air]

I don't work OE but have heard of a few. Habitats - obviously the focus is on the area in which animal/plant lives and why its best for them. Adaptations - how species have adapted to meet the needs of the area, etc. Eye study - how rods and cones work, how they work for us and then for animals, why you see stars and lights better out of the sides of the eye at night, they do games like going on a night hike and each child gets a crayon and white paper to draw on and they try to guess the color, then turn a flashlight on - always wrong. Thats all I can remember!

[Melk]

when I went to outdoor ed back in the day we did outdoor living we made shelters and learned how to make a fire and stuff. When I help with outdoor ed now I teach canoeing.

[tajarbud]

When I worked OE, we did rock families(geology) and did regular visits to a quarry, also had a small demonstration farm--participants learned that chickens had 2 legs, not 4 :eek: :D any number of kids thought they (the chickens) had 4 legs since Mom bought chicken home in packages that had at least 4 legs--hehehe!! Lake study(studied the living critters we found and did chemical water tests to determine the quality), weather, store, arts.
We also learned about some of the local history with visits to nearby cemetery. We took space trips with the telescope before the starlab. Also did night drawing and sensory activities on night hikes. Did lots of habitat and tracking activities during the winter. Lake study through a hole in the ice during winter. I really loved OE in wnter--there were lots of activities that we could only do in winter. (X-country skiing, tubing, tobagonning(sp?), shelter building-including snow structures:speechles and kept warm inside, maple sugaring in spring. Compass and orienteering was always a hit with the math teachers. I know I could keep going, but this has gotten rather lengthy already.:)

[Shrek]

We had all these classes too. I liked the Bird class with things like how to tell a birds diet from the beak, ect. Up in your area, Glaciers might be a good subject area.

[The_Lorax]

I was an outdoor ed teacher on a farm so our focus was more about farming and agriculture, teaching things about sustainability and enviromental awareness

I work now as head of a nature program at a camp and I find that its really importaint to do things that entertain kids and dont remind them of school.

[amnickel]

I don't know if this falls into what you're looking for but at our camp this summer we are doing a scavenger hunt. The kids are looking for teddy grams, twisted pretzels, cherrios, chex, raisins, water, and M&M's. Each one has a meaning.
Teddy Grams: always have a friend with you and let someone know where you are going.
Twisted Pretzels: work as a team
Cherrios: Be safe and use life preservers on the boat and while swimming
Chex: Know where you are (latitude and longitude)
Raisens: Know what kind of berries you can eat in the woods and which ones you can't; Have food with that keeps easily and doesn't need refridgerating
Water: Stay hydrated
M&M's: quick energy source

We are having the water at the end as the final thing and then the rest the kids can either eat as they go along or wait till the end and mix it.:D

[YUrocks!]

We have kids disect owl pellets. It's actually super fun

[CAMPFRIEND]

I think I did the owl pellets when I was in the 5th grade. It was fun but that was so long ago!