Mixing nature’s beauty with outdoor survival, students learn the 10 Essentials for any outdoor trip. While in the forest, they band together as a team to build emergency shelters, build fires, and cook food in an outdoor setting.
What’s Covered
This course provides students with the essential skills needed to be successful for an outdoor excursion in the wilderness—from planning and preparing for a trip, packing a backpack and practicing Leave No Trace to building fires & shelters and campsite cooking.
Lessons & Activities
Leave No Trace
Students learn the (7) principles of Leave No Trace (LNT) as they pertain to outdoor recreation and actively practice them throughout the Outdoor Skills class.
The 10 Essentials
Students create their own list of what they believe the (10) essentials for hiking & backpacking might be before comparing it to the list curated by wilderness experts.
Fire Building
Students gain a comprehensive understanding of the elements needed to create a fire and gain hands-on experience gathering tinder, kindling and fuel to build their own fires. Students learn how to build (3) basic fire structures—teepee, log cabin and lean-to—and in what scenario each structure might be most useful. As part of abiding by U.S. Forest Service regulations, students will not ignite their fires but will apply the structure-building skills gained to the next phase of the class: shelter building.
Shelter Building
Using the skills gained during fire-building, students will break into teams and build survival shelters out of natural materials under a time constraint. They must select an optimal site and as part of Leave No Trace, only use materials that are already dead or “down,” such as fallen branches, needles, leaves and rocks.
Outdoor Cooking
Students learn the basics of campsite cooking using a gas stove. They are rewarded for hard work and efforts building fires and shelters with some cheesy quesadillas and/or citrusy white fir needle tea.
Educational Standards
During this class, students will learn:
- Team work
- Fire Safety
- Problem solving
- Confidence
Ready to Get Started?
Accelerate your students’ learning with our exciting curriculum. Learn more about this hands-on, experiential education activity today.
