Discussion: Orienteering in school Physical Education

Anyone have any good resource material on why orienteering should be included as part of a school's physical education program? I don't need training ideas, lesson plans, etc... what I am looking for is rationale for why it would be appropriate/valuable to include orienteering as a component of Physical Education class. I've started to write up a few things myself, but any pre-existing material would be great.

The PE department at St. Bonaventure University teaches its students (pre-teachers) orienteering and some of them DO bring it to their student teaching. I'll ask the chair if he has any written justification for this.

If you go to Ed Hicks website (orienteering unlimited) and poke around I think you'll find a list of the benefits of orienteering. Building self-esteem, self confidence, etc.

from Times Educational Supplement
http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=600840...

NZOrienteering
http://www.nzorienteering.com/coaching/kiwisport_m...

UK
http://www.nzorienteering.com/coaching/kiwisport_m...

also from UK article
http://www.teachingexpertise.com/articles/sport-sp...

Can orienteering be included in PE when the school is in a dense urban area with no large parks nearby?

Not just PE but Geography as well - relating the map to your surrounds. Distinguishing features (brown, blue, black, green etc) from one another.
I find the greatest benefit from O to be decision making under pressure:
(i) 10 seconds spent carefully considering a route may save 30 seconds later on. Multiply by 15-20 controls and that's a large time saving
(ii) everyone makes mistakes in O, and the person who gets back on track the quickest usually wins.

This is why O is ideal for every person.

Barb - dense urban areas are great for distance estimation - have a look at the sprint finals maps from WOC for route choice in such territory.

Lastly, O is great for kids who are academically strong but do not like PE or sport - their intelligence in map reading and route choice will allow them to go ats a slower pace but still compete with the faster types who rush.

I also "sell" it to schools who want something for their talented students as an extension activity - physical + academic + higher order thinking/organisational skills.
It's also used in math areas - scale drawing, spatial recognition, maps.

Thanks for all the advice so far.

I've got lots of good stuff on relating O' to other academic areas: math, geography, sciences, history, language/writing and more. I'll be happy to share resources on this. What I'm working on right now is specific to get orienteering accepted at one school district to fill a 1 semester PE requirement at the USA high school level (approx ages 14-17). If that's been done before, any precedent would be great; if not then perhaps I can set a precedent that others will be able to use in the future.

Barb, I have introduced orienteering on school grounds and urban parks as small as 7 to 10 acres (3-4 hectares). Those areas might not give enough variety for a semester long PE requirement, but they (or smaller, or even an indoor space) can be used for introducing basic orienteering skills.

In Turkey, they held orienteering meets in gymnasiums using snow fencing/things we might recognize as cubicle partitions. Saw a vid of it when I was there a few years ago. Pretty cool. Hassle to set up and break down, but if you don't have the space, but do have the will, it is possible.

using snow fencing/things

Google Orient-Show for more ideas.

Mike, I've been getting requests from teachers (mostly PE, but not all; various grades) these past few days asking for ways to incorporate O into classes.

I've been pointing them to Meg Garrett's book and the Coaching Manual.

Anything else?

Orienteering is included as one of the adventure/outdoor activities approved for California physical education. I don't know of any schools that have it as part of their curriculum, though.

http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/pestandar...

don't know if this would be of help, but the Singapore American School (US curriculum, course structures, etc.) has a 1 semester PE (1/2 PE credit) in their course catalog that does orienteering, adventure racing and climbing, on page 50 of the course catalog:
http://www.sas.edu.sg/hs/Catalogs/pdf/PPG.pdf

So SAS offers orienteering instruction in a country with none, but TAS (Taipei American School) has no orienteering in a country with plenty (okay, maybe not "plenty", but enough). Go figure.

Reading the SAS catalog, page 51, it describes the orienteering component as instruction in compass navigation, waypoint heading and sectional map navigation. At least it is a start, but from the description, I wouldn't expect too much. and adventure training, not adventure racing seems to feature trust games and some skills such as rapelling, but again I wonder how far it goes. Hey, way ahead of most schools though, no matter what.

In the California catalog, you have to go to the glossary (page 61) to actually find orienteering listed as one of the adventure/outdoor activities, but it is there - just took some searching to find it.

Mike,
One semester? Would that be about 50 to 60 hours of instruction? Wow!
The longest instruction block I ever taught of orienteering was about 6 days or nine hours, in and around the school capped by a half day field trip to the Gatineau Park. This was part of a senior level phys ed course I developed. It was designed to highlight personal fitness and 'lifetime sports' as opposed to the mainstream football-basketball- volleyball - etc.

and adventure training, not adventure racing seems to feature trust games and some skills such as rapelling, but again I wonder how far it goes.

This sounds a lot like the special PE class at my high school back in the 1970s (for all sophomores, and optional for juniors and seniors), which was how I got introduced to orienteering.

The high ropes courses and climbing wall at SAS are actually pretty good ones, and orienteering is done also in preparation for some of the trekking and survival school trips done during what is called "Interim Semester" http://www.sas.edu.sg/hs/interim/pdf/Interim_Semes...

But that is beside the point, the true point is that one could work on having a similar unit of orienteering, adventure and climbing, plus even MTBO and camping, all combined to create a life skills program, so to speak.

Taiwan Junior High School has a mandatory Scout Education with outdoor survival skills. Amanda, a Taiwan friend and orienteer teaches this class, and upon her return she can tell me more about the orienteering portion taught in school here, I think it is pretty substantial.

Is that the same as the O-program that Frank does (and we saw)?

No.Frank does a field trip program for K-middle school, and visits to pre-schools, nothing for Junioe High School, as that is already a required course at that level.

didn't mean to sound critical, it sounds like they are at least on the right track.

Mike, didn't think you were sounding critical.
What I intended to say is that in the US one could also think about how to combine orienteering into a 1 semester credit course for HS, for example as part of something that gives kids who want to study, e.g.,forestry, wildlife management, something with global imaging, etc., a "leg" up. Maybe tie in a bit of mapping... If there are schools out there that already have a syllabus/curriculum, benchmarks, etc. description online somewhere, I would love to know about it.

@andrea: Any thoughts about how to get O into the MS/HS back in your WI district?

I wrote a paper on this topic and did a presentation at the national PE convention on this. In PE today they talk about life skills. There are many reasons and application for in everyday life such as finding your way around or understanding geography as many of you have mentioned. What orienteering really teaches and develops is a life compass. It teaches and a person how to orient themselves to the people and the spaces around them. For example if you spin in circles very fast and fall down, the feeling is disorientation. When you stand up a person has to reorient themselves to the world around them. A child who is very good at this is up and perfectly oriented to his life again. However many children today walk around and life has them in a constant spin. They have no connection to a past point or future point, making it hard for them to know where they are. In the PE classroom orienteering if taught in the right way can teach children to develop a life compass so that they can navigate the paths and spins life throws at them. I imagine most people will find this a very philosophic approach. Where is the science and numbers? Its easy to say we have and obese population. Orienteering would get students moving and out in nature. It teaches students how to read a map and use a compass. It is a lifelong skill that they could use for the rest of their lives if they choose. Finally every school has a diverse population. You will have the football players the basketball players the runners. By bring orienteering to a PE classroom you give the future orienteerers the possibility of getting involved in the sport. If your at all interested in what I have mentioned I would be happy to talk more and show you some stuff that I use to begin teaching and promoting orienteering

Without having read through all comments in this thread (yet) I would like to point out that - at least in theory - knowledge of orienteering is equivalent to being able to swim in the Swedish school system. It is a mandatory part of the school curriculum - whether this works in reality or not is another story...

I´ll do some research and may come back with more comments.

I have been the O in Schools Coordinator for the last few years with very little success gathering materials like you are all discussing. It's great that it's out there. I'd appreciate receiving all material you have on O in Schools so I can put it into a package to add to the OUSA website. Material from any country is great!!

If you don't have the materials yourself, if you can give me a contact name and e-mail or phone number, that would be wonderful.