outdoor education reflection

1. What i remember best about Outdoor ED from this year was when we went outside during the winter and made our "quinziees". We went out 3 times the first time we went out we just dug out the snow until we were at the ground. We had to make a huge snow pile right beside the hole we made. the next day we came out we took all that snow and put in back into the hole and made a hill. after we let it sit for a day. we came out for the final day to dig out the holes we would be sitting in. my group didn't make it through the whole quinziee. We were only able to fit one person in it, but i had a lot of fun making it with my group members.

2. What Challenged  me the most this year in outdoor ed was interpreting to the young students.The first group of students the first day was the hardest, me and Owen had to talk first for our introduction and i felt nervous. But after a couple round through my group where i was presenting wetland stress i felt a lot better and more comfortable.

3. Something i found interesting to do in Outdoor Ed this year was probably the time we went on the lake to go canoeing. we went out just for the morning with  Jack Coulson. That was my first time canoeing ever, i was partners with Seth. He taught as the things we needed to know so we were able to canoe on the river. We learned how to do a full 360 in the water, J-stroke and the pry maneuver. I found this really interesting and very useful while canoeing.

4. This year i think we should of had more group work activities. I think that working in groups on outdoor assignments is beneficial because you would get more then one point of view on the questions.And being in groups make thing more fun and less stressful while working.

5.  Some of the skills i learned in this class that i will be using in the future are how to make a quinziee, tying knots like the square knot, s granny knot, figure 8 knot, clove hitch, truckers knot, and cowboy handcuffs. I also will be using  my knowledge on how to interpret to others. And the final thing i learned that will be very useful in the future is how to canoe on the lake and on the river.

6. Things that could make this class better for the students  is going outside in the environment of our school grounds to learn a out different things like different kinds of trees or grasses. We could also do more activities outside like playing different games like the games we played out in the wetlands with the kids. Just overall being outside more would be a lot better for the students.

7. I will and would be willing to pay to go on different places for unique experiences. I think that going on different trips with the class is a good way to learn and have fun, but i would not care if we had to pay a little fee to be able to go. Some thing i would like to do that we will have to pay for if we went is going on the big canoe trip by the border of Ontario, going hiking, and going fishing on different lakes.

8. During the year i think we had a good balance between indoor activities and outdoor activities. we did a lot of indoor work in the class room, but we also did a lot of fun activities outside were we learned more. I think that if we did anymore activities this year we would all have been tired and exhausted, for example while we did our interpretation to the grade fours it was a great time but everyone was very tired afterwards.

9. Things we could do to improve our Outdoor Ed program could be  not do so much work and repetitive work on the wetlands. We could switch things up and do other things that have to do with Outdoor Ed. Something else that would improve our Outdoor Ed program is doing more activities in the winter, and stuff about winter outdoor safety and survival.

10. I think we should be doing more of the concept/skill development but instead of doing them again and learning how to we could be doing it in a bigger whole. Like instead of going outside and making a quinziee we could actually go on a little trip and stay over night in one. And i think we could all do more fire work, like how to make a fire and how to properly put a fire out.

Full day canoe trip

1. What I did well
Some things I think I did well was being a good strong paddler, talking to my partner, and looking for obstructing.

2. What I need to improve
Some things I need to improve on is steering the canoe, not hitting rocks and other canoes. Not tipping the canoe, we tipped the canoe only once but we got stuck many times.

3. What I really enjoyed
What I really enjoyed was when we went swimming in front of the huge sand pit, and seeing all the plant life.

4. What I found difficult and why
 Found steering really difficult, I didn’t know how to turn right so we always ended up running into the bank. I also found trying to hop back into the canoe at some point difficult. Paddling against the wind.

5. Would I recommend canoe trips in the future why, why not

I would recommend other canoe trips to others because I think After all the difficulties it was pretty fun. It would probably be very difficult for some people me included to be able to paddle for long a long time.

Gear list

GEAR LIST


- proper shoes (tied on)
- sun protection
- extra clothe
- sun glasses (with rope around head)
- food/snacks
- water
- dry socks
- jacket that stops the wind
- towel
- hat
- clothe that dries out quickly (cotton kill)
- back pack
- bailing can
- rope
- whistle

Interpretation with the kids

1. What really worked?
At my station wetland stress things that really worked well was getting the kids to come in close and gather around when we were motioning our hands, another thing that worked well was our game I didn’t think they would understand the moving of the bean bags that well but for the most part almost all the groups understood.

2. What didn’t work?
 What I think did it work was how long our intro was at our station, most of the kids lost focus after a couple minutes so we really had to get them to focus or they wouldn’t understand. Another thing I don’t think worked was during the intro of the whole thing I don’t think the game worked that good because of were we located it.

3. What was a difficult that I did not expect?
Some difficulty I didn’t think we would have is kids not paying attention to us as we were talking, some kids when we asked them a question didn’t understand and started talking about other things.

4. Where there outstanding students? Why?
In about every group there was about 1-2 outstanding students. I think they were outstanding because they kept there eyes on me as I was talking and understood and didint fool around.


5. What could we do better?
I think something we could have done better was practice our information more, then we could have memorized it. Memorizing the information would have made it a lot better because we could have connected our eyes more with the students and had more fun.

6. My comments
Overall I think that both days were extremely fun and well prepared.

Tour of wetland with mr.Miller

During the morning we talked and discussed and went through our groups for our interpretation with the kids at our wetland. He gave everyone advice and suggestions on how to make there paper better. Some stuff he suggested for our group is to add more examples for the answers to the questions we ask, he suggests some changes to out script like  the first thing we say should be a question for the kids that relate to the theme of out script.

Some overall things he told to our whole class was to not worry about the behaviour of the kids, talk loudly to the kids, talk simple like general so they will understand easily. He suggested changing some of the games and adding some games into different stations for a better understanding of the station. He told us that writing stuff out on a wipe bored is a great idea for showing the kids what you are talking about. He also had ideas for us to face the kids away from the wind and sun.

After we were done in the class room we walked down to the wetlands for a interpretion tour. He took us around the wetlands talking about the best place for each station to be placed. He made suggestions for each group, for adapt or die he made the suggested to get rid of the game and just take them on a mini tour to let them touch each of the things for example a tree eated my a beaver, or a bats nest. He talked to us about the cattails that we have in our wetlands. He showed us that the bottom of the cattails are eatable and he broke some off and let us try.

As we walked around our wetlands he taught us a new game he wanted to incorporate into our script. He told us how to explain it and how to run it smoothly. He used a sound device to get our attention, he told us that it would be a good idea for us to have one during our interpretation. He said that the game was only to last about 5-6 minutes. After we were all done we thanked him for coming and for his help.

Interpretation with Mr.Miller

On Friday Barret Miller will be coming to you school to talk to us about interpretion, we will be going down to the wetlands so he can show us different skills we will need to interpret for the young kids.
 Some of the questions I will be asking are:

1. How do I connect my game to the main point which is wetland stress?
2. How do explain clearly, how farmers use chemicals to harm wetlands so kids will understand?
3. How do I make explaining wetland stress fun without having the kids get bored?
4. Is it a good idea to repeat the information of the kids show that they don’t understand?

River paddle

At the start of our day we drove down to the damn where me and Hashim were partnered up to go canoeing on the river. We unloaded our canoe and carried it down to the river. To get in the canoe on moving water we had to place the canoe sideways so it was going with the flow of the water. As we paddled down the river Mr.Coulson taught us many things like how to ferry across the river, we spent about 5 minutes watching and learning. After we go to our first rapids there we learned about how to scope out a rapid and how to find a fun and safe route through.  As we kept going through we saw our first strainer, we got taught how to find a strainer and go around it, for some unlucky strainer they got caught in one😂. We leanered how to properly get out of the canoe and raft up to go around a rapid that is unable to go through. We leanered how to pull so own out of a sltrainer and sweeper, since we watched two canoes get rescued. We also learned how to see where the big rocks are in the water, it makes a V going down stream. At the end we leanered how to save a paddled that was flowing down the river, Coleman leaped into th water and rescued the long lost paddle. Through the trip we only had one canoe tip, some of us jumped in to pull the canoe out.