Pathfinder Leadership Requirement #2

PATHFINDER LEADERSHIP REQUIREMENT #2

Plan and participate in leading an all-day outdoor activity for your patrol. Evaluate the event with your patrol at the end of the activity.

To help the youth learn the planning and execution process, our leadership team came up with this process:

Designated a Scout Leader responsible for a one day activity

COURT OF HONOR:

Called a Court of Honor (Patrol Leaders (PL) and Assistant Patrol leaders (APL) at one of our regular meeting nights and told tell them that we had a one day activity that was coming up and they had to do the following:

1.  Determine if they wanted to do a one day outing

2.  Identify what type of activity would be conducted (with leader guidance)

3.  Select the location (with leaders guidance)

4.  Take the ideas back to their patrols and see if there was interest.

MESSAGING TO THE YOUTH

After the message was taken back to the rest of the scout group, we met with the PL and APL’s at the end of the meeting and collected the feedback. The top picks were:

1.  Day hike – using GPS or compasses

2.  Location – Kanata trails or OPE or Murphy’s Point provincial park

3.  Activities – cooking on light weight stoves, as many chief scout requirements as leaders can fit in.

MESSAGING TO THE PARENTS

After the feedback from the youth had been received, the scout leaders chose the Kanata trails as the location for the one day hike simply because of the logistics, ease of transportation and costs. This message was sent to the parents outlining the following:

·  Activity name

·  Location

·  Cost

·  Benefits (skills being practiced and this was considered a Chief Scout Award activity)

YOUTH PRIMES

Two youth volunteered (were volunteered) to be the primes for this activity,

RECCE

In order to figure out whether the terrain was suitable and whether the hike could be performed, scout leaders walked the trails with GPS units to track trails and identify hazards. During these hikes several of the youth came along and helped identify areas they thought the other scouts would be interested in and where fun activities could be had.

Over four weekends where leaders and some of the youth walked, the following areas were identified (along with leader guidance)

·  Start point

·  Routes that each patrol would take on their hike

·  Areas of interest (that could be marked with a GPS)

·  Area where lunch could be cooked

·  end point

The youth asked for the following elements to be added into the hike

Chief Scout requirement: Leave no Trace for the following:

·  Cooking area

·  Pack it in, pack it out

·  Leave only footprints

·  Stay on Trail.

·  Tree identification

·  Animal/Bird identification

·  Learning how to navigate using GPS

ADJUSTMENTS TO THE SCOUT PROGRAM

As the recce’s were being performed, our Troop leaders determined that the terrain and the elements that we found on the hikes required the scouts to learn more about the following areas:

·  Lost in the woods

·  Leave no Trace

·  Learning how to use lightweight backpack stoves

PLANNING THE ROUTE

The leaders showed one the youth how the routes the GPS had recorded could be downloaded to a laptop and then uploaded into Google Maps. The scout youth who were the most computer smart, then took the GPS trail routes and created hiking routes using Google Maps and highlighted the areas where the youth had to walk and navigate.

The routes were then inspected by the leaders for the following LNT Principles “Travel and camp on Durable surfaces”

·  Realistic distances

·  Routes did not cross over water on treacherous terrain

·  Environmentally sensitive areas

It took a few attempts to get route planned out to the level of satisfaction of the leaders. The leaders then printed the hiking route and gave it out to each scout patrols.

EQUIPMENT AND KIT LISTS

With the location and hike routes selected, the leaders then asked the youth to prepare a kit list for the activity and identify the items that would be needed. The youth easily figured this out as they had already been through a KIT list planning activity.

The items the youth had identified were:

1.  Personal kit list – clothing etc...

2.  First Aid kit (per patrol)

3.  Equipment for cooking (to be shared out among the patrol)

4. 

EVENT EXECUTION

START: At the start of our hiking activity, we gathered the youth into patrols and had them perform the following actions:

·  Inspect each other’s day packs to check the contents against the kit list they had identified

·  Equipment checks (stoves, fuel, pots and pans, utensils, food, shelters, first aid kits, emergency kit, GPS units)

·  Prior to starting the hike, the youth setup and established the start point on the GPS units and confirmed they were all working

HIKE ACTIVITIES

·  The youth were reminded by the leaders to follow “Leave No Trace” principles and were told that the leaders wanted to hear them talk aloud about the principles of LNT as they conducted the hike.

·  The youth were able to follow the trail of GPS waypoints that had been programmed into the units (at each waypoint, a leader would double check that the right waypoint had been reached and the new direction was indeed correct).

·  All youth were able to navigate to the cooking area successfully

·  All youth successfully demonstrated (with varying levels of success) the LNT principles for setting up a cooking area and leaving no trace of their passing (Pack it in, pack it out)

·  With lunch done, the scout youth then continued with their navigation hike and completed the route that had been planned.

·  The trip took longer than expected – 8 hours instead of the 6 that had been planned.

POST TRIP SUMMARY – SCOUT YOUTH PERSPECTIVE

The leaders surprised the youth with an unscheduled stop at Tim Horton’s on the drive home. A post mortem of the activity was held while the youth were infused with sugar Tim-Bits and sugary hot chocolate. The results of the post-mortem were:

·  Great event – everyone enjoyed the outing – everyone was pleased it was done

·  The hike was too long – it took 8 hours instead of 6 – so there should have been a shortcut route planned to cut the hiking distance if things ran late.

·  Everyone agreed that the LNT principles for (1) trip planning (2) durable surfaces and (3) Pack it in, Pack it out” were good things to know.

·  Everyone agreed that LNT for cooking is harder than they thought.

·  The scouts forgot to do a focused Tree identification activity

·  They would all do another one day outing again – but not soon

·  The planning of the outing was more than they had thought, but would be willing to help out again as they had a better idea what to expect next time.

·  Leaders should cook their own meal next time

·  Coming across a fresh animal kill was really cool – and it made an impression as to how wildlife has to survive in a winter environment

POST TRIP SUMMARY – LEADERS PERSPECTIVE

·  Once engaged, the youth were able to successfully walk through a planning and execution with guidance from the leaders.

·  Holding a Court of Honor to get the outing ideas was a good idea. We would follow a similar approach next time.

·  We thought that the planning support that we gave the youth would pay off next time we did a one day outing. The next time an outing was planned; the leaders would do less and get the youth to do more.

·  Performing multiple recce’s was essential – the area we chose to hike in demanded lots of information and we could have chosen an easier area instead.

·  Getting the youth motivated to do recce’s on weekends was a tough sell. Especially if it required a couple of hours of hiking…

·  We thought that getting the GPS routes into Google Maps would be a challenge for the youth, but surprisingly this was done without any problem at all (kids are more tech savvy that we appreciate)

·  Getting the kids to do the planning on time was very tough to complete

·  There are scout youth who excelled and those who floated through the process

·  The youth had a great time and did learn lots of useful lessons with regard to planning and how to follow LNT

·  More practice at fueling and igniting small back pack stoves is needed.

·  The youth learned how to use the GPS units with relative ease. The leaders were surprised and pleased to discover this as it opens up other useful outdoor program challenges.

·  No youth got hurt – no youth had blisters, no youth fell into the water, no youth got lost, no gear was lost and only one youth sank up to their ankles in soft wet mud.

·  This was a good trip J