[sailaway]

Our boy scout fall district camporee is going to be on the theme of map and compass work. Classes in the morining and then a compass course to go to from station to station and practice skills taught at the morning classes. Some of the classes we have come up with are and include the basics: compass reading and use, Finding your pace over a given distance, Taking Bearings, Reading a Topographical map, orienting a map and compas, true north from magnetic north, natural navigation such as finding the North Star. Does any one have any other thoughts? We talked about GPS's at the last meeting, but do not have enough of them. I would be interested in hearing from others who do orienteering, geo cacheing or interested in land navigation.

 

[Canadian]

I'm not good at land navigation. When we'd go into the wilderness my ex airborne buddy "sarge" would navigate. I'd say don't worry so much about GPS. In times of trouble the U.S. government just switches off civilian access to the system anyway. A map and compass with a mirror are all you need.

 

[NaeKid]

Teach them direction finding by watch. What this would be is standing with a watch (needs the hands) and explain to them how you can use the watch to tell direction. First thing you do is get the time. Second, using the watch, you can "put your back to the south" based on the time of day. From there, tell them that their nose points north, their left arm points west and their right arm points east.

By using that skill, they will never get lost.

Here are some articles on the web about it that can get you started:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direction_Finding_Watch

http://www.wilderness-survival.net/chp18.php

http://www.creationtips.com/compass.html

http://www.wwmag.net/directon.htm

 

[Expeditioner]

There is a lot to be said for traditional navigation skills. From time to time I put away the GPS and go "old school". Thanks for the article links NaeKid!

 

[sailaway]

Thanks for the input, we had another meeting tonight. We will be having classes in the morning covering:bearings, pacing, GPS use, topographical maps, regular state and county maps, orienting a map and compas to true north and magnetic north. In the afternoon we are going to run compas coarses to different stations and practice skills that were taught in the morning. Should be an interesting camporee. We will also be camping out Friday and Saturday night. The staff has decided to go minimalist and show the scouts how little you can get by on. Weather permitting we will do some night sky work. There will also be a geo caschaeing coarse to navigate with he GPS's.

 

[Jason]

My father in law is really into geocaching. I've done a bit and I love it. Maybe you could look online (I think the site is www.geocache.com but I'm not sure) and see if there are already any caches in your course instead of setting your own up. There may well be one. We've found them all over the PA side of Lake Pymatuning. Or you could establish a new one with the scouts and check on it next year.

 

[sailaway]

Last night I googled "lost without a compass" all kinds of neet things popped up, to many to mention, but all common sense stuff about the moon, sun using a digital watch and more. We are going to have a good camporee with this. I did try driving a stake into the ground today and put a rock where its shadow ended, a half hr. later I went out and put another rock where the stakes shadow was. I then layed a board between the 2 rocks and found north with my compass. The rocks really did line up in a true east west direction.:beercheer:

 

[Jason]

Well that's neat. I was a Boy Scout but I never made Eagle and that's really one of my big life regrets. Anyway, we did all kinds of orienteering stuff and we had a lot of fun with it. Now when we geocache (which isn't very often) we use the GPS as well as a compass just to see how one compares with the other. It's pretty neat.

 

[The_Blob]

I unfortunately got very discouraged with the scouts in Cub Scouts because it is generally run by a 'Den Mother' and it was primarily 'arts & crafts' (macaroni art ) which was pretty frustrating & uninteresting to me... looking back it seemed like it was just a different form of baby-sitting service for some parents... it was the only thing my father EVER let me quit (after sitting in on a session), he was pretty appalled at the state of scouting as he perceived it in the area but unfortunately was generally too busy to be able to volunteer and/or do anything about it, except teach things to me himself. I'm glad that REAL scouting seems to be coming back & that MEN (not being misogynist here) are taking an interest and sharing skills with youth.

 

[sailaway]

I unfortunately got very discouraged with the scouts in Cub Scouts because it is generally run by a 'Den Mother' and it was primarily 'arts & crafts' (macaroni art ) which was pretty frustrating & uninteresting to me... looking back it seemed like it was just a different form of baby-sitting service for some parents... it was the only thing my father EVER let me quit (after sitting in on a session), he was pretty appalled at the state of scouting as he perceived it in the area but unfortunately was generally too busy to be able to volunteer and/or do anything about it, except teach things to me himself. I'm glad that REAL scouting seems to be coming back & that MEN (not being misogynist here) are taking an interest and sharing skills with youth.

Our den mother had us make stuff out of popcicle stix. I'm glad I stuck it out I got into a really good troop when we moved back to Ohio. Lots of camping and out door adventure. For all the work I do, I will never be able to pay the debt back

 

[Preet]

I have heard that compasses are good but they can be inaccurate depending on where you are in the world. The stars are good to navigate by if you have clear skies and want to travel at night. A crude way to find direction is plant a stick in ground and mark it's shadow in the dirt. An hour or two later look to see where the shadow is. The shadow should move toward the east as the sun goes toward the west. Then, facing east north is on your left side, south on the right.

 

[sailaway]

I am trying to remember how to find true north from magnetic north and make compass adjustments on a topo map.

 

[bassman]

Map and compass

A good book that every person should have in their library is the Green Beret's Compass Course. Available at Pathfinder Publications, 150 Hamakua Rd/Suite401,Kailua hawaii,96734. It will teach you everything you need to know about navigating in the woods!

 

[sailaway]

Got back from the camporee today. The kids really loved it and learned alot. This was evidenced by the learning in the classes they did in the morning and being able to repeat it in the afternoon when they were tested on it.:2thumb:

 

[Ashushash]

What do you think?

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