By Richard Harpham

Bio

Richard has become a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society. 

Richard is a human powered adventurer and inspirational speaker who has completed over 10,000 miles of expeditions by kayak, canoe, bike and on foot including exploring the Yukon, cycling the Sahara and Canada’s Inside Passage.

At home he runs www.canoetrail.co.uk, a watersports and adventure business with his wife Ashley in Bedfordshire providing qualifications, canoe camping, coaching and paddling trips to some of the UK’s and world’s best locations. He is the former editor of Bushcraft and Survival Magazine and writes for Outdoor Adventure Guide, MoD’s Resettlement magazine and the Paddler magazine.

His adventures are supported by: Flint Group, Paramo Clothing, Olympus Cameras, Valley Sea Kayaks, Silverbirch Canoes, Bamboo Clothing, MSR, Canadian Affair, Osprey Rucksacks, Extreme Adventure Foods, Air North, Reed Chillcheater and Exposure Lights. You can follow his adventures through social media & @ www.richadventure.com

Learning outdoors

The benefits of introducing young people to the great outdoors is well known. In these strange and uncertain times with many schools still out, learning at home, restrictions and exiting lockdown following the pandemic, we thought it would be useful to share some of our outdoor learning ideas and resources.

Learning outside the classroom is a recognised ‘thing’ with multiple benefits for young people and families to learn together, have fun and enjoy a fresh air fix. The rise in the ‘forest school’ phenomenon and the long history and pedigree of programmes like CCF, Scouts and Duke of Edinburgh, means people understand the benefits. The easing of lockdown restrictions have been different for each of the home nations and opportunities (daily exercise provision) allow different ways to introduce new activities and challenges for your children.

The ‘new normal’ of shielding, bubbles, social distancing, new cleaning regimes will likely exist for a while. We have to find you ways to adapt our learning processes and activities. Young people bring a malleable innocence to the outdoors, seeing wonder in the wildlife, sport, textures and being in the present. Although Pablo Casals referenced music with his words, the principle equally applies to outdoor learning and enjoying flora, fauna and big spaces. “You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move. You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything.”

As a coach in paddlesport, many of us have worked with young people teaching various different disciplines from racing to slalom, polo to freestyle and watched our young people embrace our sport but also grow in confidence, life skills and blossom into rounded adults.

Inspiration

We started inspirational programmes over a decade ago with our award winning social enterprise Inspired Life CIC, a London 2012 Inspire mark project, which has engaged over 35,000 young people to date. The key ethos of our programmes and resources are:

• Strength based models (building strengths and weakening weaknesses).
• Experiential learning – learning by doing. something coaches will recognise
• Goal setting and big dreams – part of performance pathways.
• Positive role models which have included Etienne Stott, James Bebbington, James Reeves and Helen Reeves.
• Raising self esteem and efficacy through personal and team challenges.
• Boosting life skills.

Inspired Life delivered a 23.8% improvement in adolescent well-being which proved more successful than counselling.

We have shared some of our experiential resources, challenges and emotional well-being tools here https://medium.com/@inspiredlifeCIC which are free to use and share.

Adventure School

Adventure School is a programme created by Canoe Trail to blend life skills and the work of Inspired Life CIC and outdoor activities such as canoeing, kayaking, team challenges, SUP, and bushcraft. It offers young people a safe laboratory to learn in an outdoor environment practicing life skills and learning technical skills through adventure and challenges.

All programmes are built on three pillars of being safe, having fun and learning together.

We have shared a range of our challenges and resources in our Canoe Trail blog and YouTube Channel, which you can find here https://www.canoetrail.co.uk/youth-activities/educational-resources. It includes simple videos on cooking, knots and rope, as well as big expeditions, adventures, wildlife and skills.

Age appropriate

It is important to consider the age appropriateness of the material and challenges in relation to the learning objectives and pace for the young people involved. Personalized learning is important as we all learn at different times, styles and pace. Primary school programmes focused on strong play, having fun and more learning by stealth. Older children and young people at secondary school age think more about life skills, vocational skills and things that help future employment. Paddling qualifications are a good thing to add to any CV.

You can consider a learning ladder or progression with level of learning outcome desired for the participants:

• Introductory
• Intermediate
• Advanced
• Mastery and coaching of others

This fits nicely into the new personal performance award structure of start, discover and explore from British Canoeing.

Learning styles

We all have preferred learning styles captured by the model, VARK.

V = Visual – demonstrations and videos
A =Auditory – listening preference
R = Reading/writing
K = Kinaesthetic – learning by doing and feeling

Consider how this fits with your family and young people you know.

Gamification

Keeping it fun and making it into a game is one of the best ways to make learning fun and share new ideas. Key elements of gamification include a level of competition, teams and team work, point scoring and rules. Many of the cross stream challenge resources from the British Canoeing and Paddle Power formats, focussed on this aspect of coaching young people. We often add in a time limit or competition for challenges and automatically people of all ages but especially kids get it. For example, the first one to light the fire and boil water for the instructor wins. Or building the best shelter? Sometimes we can use restrictions to level the playing field in learning such as blindfolding, or insisting on a planning phase that involves all team members. Leo Hoare of ‘Get A Fix’ always maintained that as coaches we are ‘ugly and boring’, therefore use games and funny warm ups to boost the enjoyment and memory storage of skills.

Coordination and the Kinesphere

Our kinesphere is the bubble around us if we move our arms and legs to their maximum range without moving, which was introduced by Choreographer Rudolf Laban. Children and young people have to learn what their bodies can do and how this relates to movement. When we first learn we may lack coordination and have reduced motor skills. Good practice makes permanent (coaching) so we can improve hand-to-eye coordination and movement. Adding a giant paddle or paddling equipment that doesn’t fit compounds this problem. It is also worth remembering as the new ‘head teacher’ of home schooling and coach of paddling that growth spurts and loose tendons may result in a reduction in coordination.

Growth spurts and growing pains

Young people generally grow if they are fed and watered. It is important to remember that they will not grow uniformly and this can affect some of the activities. In particular during growth spurts, children can be less coordinated or clumsy as their limbs extend. Equally, growth plates can mean painful growing pains for some young people so stay tuned to how their body is feeling. Listening to our bodies is an important skill.

Growing comfort zones

One of the amazing things about Scouts and other uniform groups is their mission to share life skills and broaden horizons by providing experiences for young people. Local paddling clubs literally change lives and are the silent social workers of the sport. Think back to your first paddling session or night camping out. Worries might have ranged from the capsize drill to darkness descending to where will I go to the toilet through to spiders or creepy crawlies. Surviving such perils expands the comfort zone which helps develop resilience, self-esteem and self-efficacy.

Boosting mood and emotional well-being

The benefits and science behind spending time in the outdoors include the benefits of natural light, Serotonin from exercise or the happy hormone and also Vitamin D from sunlight, better air quality and of course an escape from digital overload and work stress.

Getting young people into the habit of learning outside the classroom and into outdoor activities is something that will stay with them for life. Many racing clubs offer early morning training sessions finding first light and usually the wildlife at that time of the day.

Sport England and Outdoor Industry Association Research

In 2015 Sport England and the Outdoor Industry Association commissioned the largest study of outdoor activities, motivation and participation called Getting Active Outdoors. It highlighted that outdoor young people aged 11-15 experiencing outdoor activities would stick with them for life. Sports such as canoeing, SUP, mountaineering and mountain biking will capture hearts and imaginations.

Stay strong and seize the day

Life as lockdown eases further will offer a chance to spread our wings again. Embrace staycations and exploring Great Britain. In the meantime remember it has provided a time exercise your minds and bodies to make the most of the opportunities. Learn new skills, try different crafts as a family or household. It is the first step to adopting a positive mindset. Go for it.

Further resources

There is a raft of resources available online. Some useful resources I have found useful are:

www.dofe.org/ No.1 rated life skills programme
www.rspb.org.uk/ great wildlife tasks to get closer
to nature.
www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/ fantastic kids activities in their blog.
www.woodland-ways.co.uk have just launched a new blog.
www.canoetrail.co.uk wide range of adventure, paddling and guides in our blog and YouTube channel
https://medium.com/@inspiredlifeCIC range of challenges, activities and emotional well-being resources
www.scouts.org.uk/ a range of activities and challenges.
www.nhm.ac.uk/visit/virtual-museum.html virtual tours including Sir David Attenborough as your tour guide!
www.lotc.org.uk a summary of some of the best elements from members.
https://www.britishcanoeing.org.uk/ lots of programmes, updates and resources.