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 Teaching Orienteering in Schools
Orienteering is a good way to teach children map skills, and can be integrated
with units on geography, math and science. In Sweden, it is a required part
of the elementary school curriculum, and in the English-speaking world,
it is also an important part of the curriculum in many schools in Scotland,
England, parts of Canada, as well as Westchester County and the Seattle
area in the United States.
In the United States, many individual teachers in other areas would like
to incorporate orienteering into the curriculum, and the purpose of this
page is to provide some information on resources.
Books, Videos and Games
There are many good books that incorporate lesson plans for a
variety of ages; I have mentioned and summarized a few here, but others
are also available that I have not had a chance to review.
Carol McNeill of Scotland, who was one of the top orienteers in the world
in the 1970s, has written a series that covers teaching orienteering for
various age groups (6-8, 8-9, 9-10, and 10-12; $10.60 each). Her books provide
many examples which use classrooms as well as unmapped and mapped school
grounds. She has also coauthored packages that include 20 lesson plans ($20
for stages 1 and 2; $24 for stages 3 and 4).
The orienteering federations of Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S.
have also put out manuals (and in some cases, lesson plans) to aid in teaching
orienteering in schools; most of these are geared to students about 10 years
old and are fairly specific to the country.
Some good orienteering videos are available. An 11-minute video
by Chris Cassone ($24.95) gives a good introduction to orienteering; a two-part
series "Orienteering: The First Steps" ($39.95) covers orienteering
in the schools (part 1) as well as in the woods (part 2).
Finally, there are several games that may be useful in the classroom.
Some of these concentrate on particular skills; for example, there is a
":Beginner's Compass Game" in which students follow compass bearings
for specified distances and see how accurate they are ($2.75; there is also
and Advanced version for $3.00 - specify whether you want distances in feet
or meters). Other games concentrate on learning map symbols or on route
choice. My personal favorite is a game by Robin Harvey (the arbiter of orienteering
mapping; he's based in Scotland), which covers many aspects of orienteering
and is well designed and visually attractive ($49.95).
All of these items are available from suppliers of orienteering equipment.
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