Discussion: Teaching PE teachers to teach orienteering?

The principal of an elementry school in a town near Williams recently contacted me (through the outing club) to ask for some help with organizing PE teachers at several of the area schools to start incorporating orienteering into the curriculum. I have a meeting with the principal and PE teacher this Thursday to brainstorm ideas and was wondering if any of you have had experience with something like this in the past and would have some suggestions.

They want to have a workshop later this spring for the area taechers. There are two maps somewhat nearby, one of which is on the high school property and fairly good place for teaching beginners (drafted by Pat Dunlavey and Heather Williams). However, while the elementary school property is about 20 minutes from the high school, it adjoins a state park which I think they were hoping to use (which is not mapped except for USGS). Is there anything that I can suggest doing with that area? My plan was to bring in Cassone's new video and the USOF coaching orienteering handbook to give them some background information. Then to discuss what goals they had for orienteering. I've heard of people making b/w maps of school property at other schools- is that effective at teaching? if you have any ideas that might help me help them- let me know- my e-mail is 04sma@williams.edu.

What you really need to do is give them specific activities that they can use to teach their students. Fun games they can play with their students, such as a treasure hunt, taking bearings, making a model of their school, playing map tag. This obviously depends on the level/age of these students, but it has been my experience that the teachers (i went to a guide leader convention) want an introdution into orienteering so that they understand the sport, then an explanation of what exactly it would be good to do with their students.
It is also always useful to have a very simple map of the school grounds (possibly black and white), for introdution purposes.

Zan, You should try to get some pro help, this is a golden opportunity for USOF and local clubs.
There should be an O in schools person in USOF, see if you can find on the website, and Greg Sack puts out a newsletter for teachers on O, get in touch with him, he had an article in ONA in the last year.
There is a USOF manual "Teaching O in Schools" or near to that title.
The best you can do is get the teachers in the loop for materials and contacts with other teachers who teach O. Also contact Chris Cassone, he is so experienced at this you should call him on the phone.
THe B/W maps are perfect for intro of O at schools.
You will have to make them, or maybe Pat could help, it's prrobably out of the teachers' realm.
Another idea would be to see if they are interested in inter school competitions.
The state forest may be good for O, you should check it out, but again someone has to make a map, a USGS would not be detailed enough over the smaller area they would want for beginners.
Get some help on this, it;s a great opportunity, but lots of work too.
Let me know if you need some help. I've done some school intro to o sessions (1st to 6th graders)

thanks so much for all the information. As I get a chance to work more on this I'll definately follow up on these leads. It was awesome to see what an immediate and caring responce the orienteering community has.