Hurry, get outside while you still can! Before you know it, the wind will be howling, the snow will be falling, and we'll be trapped back indoors with our students. Take these next few fall weeks and get them outside for activity. Take a look at the outdoor scavenger hunt with the use of a compass.

Also, start to preach about the importance of not only a healthy attitude now, but more importantly making your lifestyle healthy. Take a look at the presidential challenge for teens, as well as the Get Active, stay active program. Enjoy.

Lloyd Gage - PELinks4U Graduate Assistant

Get outdoors before its too cold with this activity from PE Central.

Name of Activity: Orienteering Scavenger Hunt

Purpose of Activity: The students will take a reading with a compass, and use the compass to reach multiple checkpoints.

Prerequisites: Travelling directions such as north, south, east, and west.

Suggested Grade Level: 6-12

Materials Needed: Compasses (one for every student), one demonstration compass (either large one or overhead), balloons, poly spots, and direction cards.

Compass base is the rectangular bottom part of the compass.

Compass needle or magnetic needle is the red and white arrow that moves. The red part of the needle always points north.

Compass housing or dial is the turnable dial on the compass. The numbers on the dial refer to degrees of azimuth, also called a bearing.

Direction of travel arrow or sighting line is the arrow on the compass base. This is the pointer to where you want to go.

To use the compass, hold the compass level so the magnetic needle turns freely. Rotate the compass dial to a desired bearing (so the sighting line falls directly on a bearing such as 90 degrees which is east). Hold the compass so that the back of the compass (part of the compass base opposite the direction of travel arrow) is at your belly button. Keeping the back of the compass at your belly button, turn in a circle until the red end of the magnetic needle lines up with zero degrees (north) on the compass dial. The direction of travel arrow now points to the bearing set on your compass. For more information on using a compass, go to www.learn-orienteering.org/.

Walk the students through the cues and repeat the steps to face different directions and bearings. Practice travelling at specific bearings by setting the compass to a bearing, picking a spot on the gym wall that the directional arrow points to, and walking towards that spot.

After the students have grasped the reading of a compass then you can start them on a Scavenger Hunt. If they need more time learning how to read the compass then you may want to wait till the next day to do the Scavenger Hunt.

...on to Orienteering Scavenger Hunt

...continued from "Outdoor Activity"

Set up the scavenger hunt by spreading poly spots on the floor of the activity area. Write the following directions on different scraps of paper so that each course is on a different piece of paper:

Fold the paper and put one of these in each balloon. Blow up the balloons and spread them around outside of general space. Putting the course directions in the balloon is optional.

Begin the activity by having students split up into pairs. Stress the fact that they never travel alone! They may be in a team of three if you have an odd number of students in class. One partner goes to a poly spot on the floor and the other partner gets a balloon and meets their partner at the spot. They pop the balloon and get the directions out of it.

Make sure they pick the balloon up after they pop it. Each student uses their own compass, but they travel as a team according to the directions. The directions on the sheet of paper will lead them back to where they began - the poly spot.

Teaching Suggestions:

The compass will not be accurate if used next to metal objects such as watches, belt buckles, and metal poles.

Make sure students pick a reference point on the wall when walking, rather than always watching their compass.

Have everyone practice facing different directions (different bearings) before traveling.

Variations:

The balloon idea is optional.

Use a penny or a small marker that is more difficult to see instead of the polyspots.

I got pictures of lots of cool parks all over the world and used these and told the students that this is the area that they were traveling in.

Assessment Ideas:

Have students write how many steps away from their poly spot they ended up.

TEENS! Get Active Stay Active is a site to get you moving. It's FREE! It's EASY! And, you'll look good, feel good as you log your activity (up to 6 days back) and take charge of every minute. Come back daily. Come back with friends. You'll feel like a winner.

Teachers, turn your students on to a healthy lifestyle with Get Active Stay Active! Students keep electronic fitness journals & participate in the President's Challenge. To get started, register your school and classes then ask your students to register (they create a user name & password) under that school and class. Note: Kids can log activity up to 6 days back and we do not recommend making this a mandatory class assignment.

Check out the "Get Active, Stay Active" program.