Adventure Education This essential guide promotes learning through activity-centred adventure experiences, providing advice, skill development, social education and personal development for practitioners, teachers, support staff and youth groups. This book offers advice and practical guidance on planning, setting up and running adventure education sessions with children and young people. Divided into two parts, it gives an overview of adventure education, explaining how it relates to holistic and outdoor learning and how it encourages active engagement from the learners as well as the instructors. Adventure Education provides a toolkit of various games and activities that can be used with groups of young children, including parachute games, card and musical activities, and climbing and traversing games. This book will be essential reading for all early years practitioners, primary teachers and support staff wanting to develop their skills and deliver adventure learning effectively, as well as youth groups looking to provide both informal learning and physical opportunities. Linda Ritson has worked with all ages of children and young people in a range of practitioner roles for many years and is currently employed in Children’s Services with Nottinghamshire County Council, UK. Adventure Education Fun games and activities for children and young people Linda Ritson First published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2016 Linda Ritson The right of Linda Ritson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Ritson, Linda, author. Title: Adventure education : fun games and activities for children and young people / Linda Ritson. Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2016. | Includes index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015047920| ISBN 9781138119956 (hardback) | ISBN 9781138119963 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781315652016 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Activity programs in education—Great Britain. | Educational games—Great Britain. | Adventure games—Great Britain. Classification: LCC LB1027.25 .R58 2016 | DDC 371.30941—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015047920 ISBN: 978-1-138-11995-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-11996-3 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-65201-6 (ebk) Typeset in Optima by FiSH Books Ltd, Enfield Contents List of figures Preface PART I THE THEORY 1 Introduction to adventure learning 2 A brief philosophy and history 3 Holistic learning 4 Defining adventure and adventure learning 5 Uniting the West and the East 6 Adventure learning and the school curriculum 7 Learning and developing 8 The team and its leadership 9 The adventure learning instructor 10 The adventure participant 11 Risk assessment 12 The adventure curriculum 13 Delivery of adventure learning 14 Outcomes of adventure learning 15 Theories associated with adventure learning 16 Theories associated with leadership and management PART II THE TOOLKIT 17 Introduction to the toolkit 18 Practical considerations 19 Being an adventure learning instructor 20 Icebreakers and energisers 21 Teambuilding games 22 Wide games 23 Problem-solving games 24 Parachute games 25 Musical games 26 Card games 27 Just being outdoors 28 More adventurous activities Canoe and kayak games Raft games Archery games Climbing games Bouldering games Traversing games 29 Why review activities and games? 30 Tools for reviewing 31 And finally … Appendix 1 Sample lesson plans Appendix 2 Survival game scenarios Appendix 3 Sample risk assessment Appendix 4 Sample route card Indexes List of figures 1 Increasing learning capacity by increasing the senses engaged 2 Our emotive drivers of learning 3 Maslow’s pyramid (hierarchy) of needs 4 The ‘chakra’ system 5 The ‘chakra’ hierarchy 6 The relationship of needs to chakras 7 Reflective learning through adventure experiences 8 Learning through balancing risk with competence 9 The states of learning 10 The briefing phase 11 The crest phase 12 The debriefing phase 13 The phases form a wave 14 Maslow’s pyramid (hierarchy) of needs 15 Experiential learning cycle 16 Adair’s ‘three circles’ of management responsibilities 17 Herzberg’s motivators and hygiene factors 18 The four possible combinations of factors 19 The incident pit 20 Four- and six-figure grid references 21 The cardinal and intercardinal points of a compass 22 Basic land compass components Preface Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid. (Attributed to Albert Einstein) We all know that we’re different from everyone else – we’re individuals and not like everyone around us – so it follows that we will all learn in different ways. Yet when we start school there is the one single method of teaching, which doesn’t suit everyone; we simply aren’t biologically wired to sit at a desk and listen to a teacher, absorbing and understanding what is being talked at us. A mechanic doesn’t learn how to fix cars by listening or reading a book, nor does a hairdresser, a computer programmer, a doctor or a solicitor; there comes a point where the theory has been covered and the learner has to go out and learn by doing, practically putting into use that which they have read and heard. The same goes for school learning. There is a definite place for classroom learning, but subjects and concepts are more meaningful if the learner can get ‘hands on’, putting them into practice for themselves, perhaps making mistakes and working things through for themselves. This book is aimed primarily at educators, with the ambition to encourage them to externalise the classroom and develop lessons that are beyond the ‘chalk and talk’ of tradition. In National Curriculum terms, I see this book as being of principal interest to educators at Key Stages 1 and 2, primarily because there is greater use of external providers at Key Stage 3 and above. However, Part II (the toolkit) is of potential interest to anyone looking for inspiration to add that extra element to their programme that will enthuse and invigorate their learning audience. Part I The Theory