Workshop Activity Plan

This page has a template for delivering a workshop. You should alter it to fit the time you have, your audience, and your goals.

Conversation: Why orienteering?

1. Brief intro with slides: What is orienteering. 

   1. Orienteering is a sport in which you race to visit a series of checkpoints shown on a map. [More about orienteering, with slides, then repeat]

   2. How many people in the room have …

      1. … been to an official orienteering meet, for example a New England Orienteering Club event?

      2. … done orienteering in some fashion, but not at an official race?

      3. … taught or incorporated orienteering into your programming? Who has done so with children or youth?

      4. … used a map to understand or communicate environmental information? The environment is the network of living organisms and non-living substrate laid out on the roughly 2-dimensional topography of the planet Earth. Maps are our model of that geometry. Orienteering gives us a fun way to explore the environment and become adept at reading maps.

Skill-Building Activities

2. In-room Explore / Animal-O plus Gather (to practice getting back into your seat)

   1. We believe orienteering is a great learning tool for skills that are relevant for [environmental / experiential / physical / STEM] education. Our next activities use skills: explore, observe, find, learn & remember, collaborate.

   2. Stand up. Walk around and introduce yourself to one or more people you do not already know: name, organization. When hear END SIGNAL, go back to seat. Call out name of a person you met. Call out organization of a person you met. We are practicing exploring, finding, homing/gathering and remembering. We are practicing collaborating to achieve the goal of all sitting down efficiently on the signal.

   3. Cones are placed around the room. People walk around until they have found TWO, or hear the END SIGNAL, then sit back down. Then we ask, where is Lion? Where is octopus? If you know, point. If you are very close, stand up and wave your arms. Point out: we have collectively mapped all 10 animals, even though each person only knew some of the information. Also true of knowledge about the environment - so important to work together.

   4. Two people each doing a course. They can ask for help from their team. Teams are people with first names of the same length. Or use A-L and M-Z last name first initial… People on their team can point in the direction of their next animal. They can’t move around. They can’t interact with the other person (misdirect).

   5. Each person draw a map showing location of ONE animal. Swap with neighbor and see if they know which animal it is.

3. In-Room Geometric-O: creating a world from a map; checking your map is oriented

   1. In groups, place some of the checkpoints using a map showing animal or code locations and landmark cones.

   2. Discussion/reflection: what happened and why? how would you do it faster next time?

   3. Do courses. When you hear SIGNAL, freeze; check if your map is oriented.

4. Discussion: how did those activities relate to orienteering? What skills will transfer?

Outdoor game: teams collect checkpoints

3. Score-O

   1. Stand up. Make a team of 2 or 3 people. Encourage you to find someone you do not know. When you have your team, sit down. (Count how long it takes - efficiently working together.)

   2. Pass out maps. Show slide. Your goal: to return and be quietly sitting in your seat by _____. Visit as many checkpoints as you have time for. At each one, punch the card in the box that corresponds to the number shown on the map. If you do not understand, please stay in your seat, and we will answer your questions after others get started. When you pass another team, give them high fives. Ready, go.

Brainstorm: learning outcomes

4. Reflection

   1. Describe your experience. (Observe - what happened?)

   2. What skill development would be useful for that game? (Analyze - what meaning?)

   3. What could be taught using that type of activity? (Design next experience - Why do we care and what do we want to do differently or next?) How could we modify to include other subject content? How to include more SEL? 

Lecture: Navigation games to build skills

5. Navigation games

   1. Goal: Develop knowledge of an area via an orienteering activity. Put on an orienteering activity.

   2. Controls: identify learning outcomes; design activity; create map; collect equipment; draw course on map; set out markers; conduct the activity; reflection exercise. 

Design: Orienteering in your program

6. Goal alignment

7. Action plan