Orienteering Ho!

We’re still plodding along with the Cadette Outdoor Journey.  I thought we’d be done by now, but we’re soooooooo close.  Just one more step in the Night Owl badge!  But even though we went on a backpacking trip this past June (which I will be highlighting in a future post), technically we didn’t cover all of the steps for the Trailblazing badge, which is part of the Outdoor Journey.  One of the choices for Step 4 is “practice navigating with a map and compass or GPS unit.” 

Growing up in Troop 20, I remember learning orienteering a couple of times through the years.  It took a few sessions to sink in.  But it paid off in an honors Geography class at the University of Georgia!  Part of our grade involved pulling out enormous U.S. Geological Survey maps from the basement of the Geography building and doing various exercises with them.  When the professor was explaining how to read these maps, I piped up with a “I learned how to do this in Girl Scouts!”  The professor didn’t seem to be impressed and continued on with his lecture.  Neither did anyone else in the class until they needed help figuring out how to read the topology maps, and then I was Miss Popular.

So even though it’s been <<muffled noise that sort of sounds like twenty-six>> years since I last used my map and compass skills, I felt somewhat comfortable reaching back into the cobwebs of my mind to teach our Cadettes the basics of orienteering.  I definitely needed to review it, though.  I had a little bit of a head start this past summer at our service unit’s summer camp called City Slickers when I taught the Juniors how to use a compass.  Some struggled during the first session, but I can tell you it was very gratifying the next morning when I called out a degree and every. single. girl. turned the correct way during our review before our compass activity!  I’ll write about this past City Slickers in an upcoming blog post too!

Before launching into my experience with the Cadettes, I wanted to upload something I’ve put together.  This is an UNOFFICIAL Guide to Orienteering that I hope is helpful for those of you hoping to learn or review the basics about orienteering.  It’s a compilation of various sources.  I can’t vouch that it’s the best thing out there or that it’s all encompassing (see what I did there?  😉 ) by any means, but I think it’s a good summary.  The appendix includes handouts plus a topographical map of Camp WaBak for practice.  There are a few notes that are specific to our council.  If you spot something that is in error, please let me know so that I can correct it and publish a new version!

So without further ado, here’s the UNOFFICIAL Orienteering Education Guide!

And how did it go with the Cadettes?  Well… let me just say there is definitely a generational gap with what we grew up with when it comes to maps versus this day and age of GPS and apps.  They had no problem figuring out how to use a compass and orient themselves correctly, but when it came to maps… whew.  I pulled out one of my large hiking maps to discuss topographical maps, and after a few minutes, I realized they weren’t even grasping the concept of a map in the first place.  One finally asked, “Why would you use this when you have your phone?”  I explained that there would be times when you wouldn’t have service like this past June’s backpacking trip.  So I backed up a little bit wondering if I was assuming too much about their map knowledge and asked if they had learned about maps in school.  They said yes, in second and third grade.  Oh boy.  So I quickly went over the basics like the compass rose, a legend, the scale, etc.  My co-leader brought out an atlas (yes, they still make them!) and told them how back in the day, we would sit down with an atlas and use a highlighter to map out a route.  They looked at us like we had three heads.

So once they seemed to get that down, I started explaining how to read topographical maps using my hiking map as an example plus one of the handouts from the UNOFFICIAL guide referenced earlier.  We did the potato exercise (also in the UNOFFICIAL guide) which bombed because they weren’t slicing the potatoes thin enough.  So for the sake of time, I drew lines around the potato with a Sharpie.  If you look at it from directly overhead, you can see the lines and compare that to your potato mountain.

We went back to the hiking map, and after showing them some examples of how you would use this to plan a hike by figuring out how steep it would be, I could tell they still didn’t get it.  I wasn’t surprised, because I didn’t get topographical maps the first time around either.  I think a lot of people struggle with them because they require spacial visualization skills.  Did you know that men on average score higher on spacial visualization tests than women?  Here’s an example of how learning outdoor skills can contribute to STEM education!  Betcha didn’t realize orienteering covers two of the four pillars (STEM, Outdoors, Life Skills, and Entrepreneurship) in the Girl Scout program!  How’s that for a plug?

Back to the Cadettes.  When I tried to show them the trail we hiked for our backpacking trek, my eyes started crossing, and I got a little frustrated myself.  My co-leader asked, “Do you want me to go get my glasses?”  I sighed and said yes.  I started feeling my age at this point between the atlas, the reading glasses, and knowing their concept of “maps” consisted of Waze on their phones.  I moved ahead to how to use the topo map of WaBak and a compass together, but I think their minds were blown by this point.

As we were starting to leave, my co-leader told the girls about how before phone apps, if you wanted to know how to get to somewhere in the city, you looked up the phone number in the Yellow Pages and called to get directions.  They stared at us with their mouths open.

Well, I’d best be getting on so that I can get to the restaurant in time to get the early bird blue plate special.  I think I wrote the directions down correctly when I called.  I’m going to take my co-leader’s glasses with me to read the menu.  Hope my dentures don’t fall out while I’m eating.