7th and 8th Graders’ Survival Demonstrations

By Olivia Menold

After many hours of classwork and preparation, Mrs. Williams’ 7th and 8th graders were ready to give demonstrations on a survival skill of their choice. 

“I came up with the idea for this demonstration project because we were talking about grit and perseverance,” said 7th and 8th Grade Language Arts teacher Sue Williams. “We read the book Hatchet by Gary Paulsen which is all about persevering to survive out in the wilderness. This lead to students coming up with their own demonstration on a survival skill.”

“I chose to teach the class how to make a shelter with ropes and a tarp,” said 8th grader Owen Hill. “I like to tie knots with rope, so I thought this would be a good skill to demonstrate.”

“I like to cook,” said 7th grader Lauren Trees. “So, I decided to show the class how to prepare food in the wilderness, and how to check to see if your food is ready.”

“I chose to teach the class how to tie knots,” said 8th grader Zach Menold. “I wanted to do this skill because I already had the materials for the demonstration, and I knew how to tie some of the knots.”

“I taught people how to make a shelter if they ever got stranded,” said 8th grader Audrey Bowermaster. 

“I built a snare trap,” said 7th grader Josh Hunt. “I had read a book on snare traps before, and I thought it would be easy and unique.”

“I made a lean-to because it was one of the first things that came to my mind, and I thought no one else would do it,” said 7th grader Bailey Elwell. 

Students put a lot of effort and hard work into the preparation for their demonstrations. 

“To prepare, I watched videos on how to tie the knots, cut out all of the ropes for my classmates to practice tying the different knots, watched videos on the use of the knots, and I practiced my speech with my family,” said Menold. 

“I went to my grandparents’ house because my grandpa was an engineer, so he knew how to create those kinds of things,” said Hunt. “He helped me set up the stuff I needed for my trap.” 

“I was making my project from branches, so I went outside and got some,” said Bowermaster. “I then cut them into model size, and I practiced building my shelter.”

After preparing, it was time to present. The students gave their demonstrations in class after Christmas break.

“I was very impressed with the students’ demonstrations,” said Williams. “I liked to see the kids’ passion with each of the survival skills they picked out.”

Williams and her students all learned many valuable survival skills from each other. 

“My other classmates’ demonstrations taught me new skills that I did not know before,” said Hill.

“Some of the things I learned how to do were, purify water and start a fire,” said Elwell. 

“I learned how to filter water and build a shelter,” said Trees. 

“Many of the skills that we learned could be taken out into the world and used,” said Williams. 

Students enjoyed the freedom of being able to pick out a survival skill that was interesting to them and then putting that skill into a demonstration to share with the class.

“I will definitely be doing demonstration speeches again because it allowed the students to tap into different skills they don’t normally use,” said Williams. “This project made students think about how their audience learns, so they can be effective teachers. It became a higher level of thinking because the students had to use both sides of their brains. In most projects, we don’t use this type of thinking.”

Demonstrations are being used in the classroom more often because it helps keep the audience engaged, and you can still get an informative, educational experience!