Discussion: Crowdsouring my class project

Imagine you're talking to someone who is not the typical APer, and you want to explain that they can learn to orienteer. I'm mostly thinking of parents of kids, but really anyone who wouldn't just look at our club websites or a video of a highly competitive, "thinking sport" and immediately want to grab a map and run through the forest. The skeptics, who react instead with "I'm not sure I can do that."

What familiar skills or experiences can they draw on to learn to orienteer?


Fill in the blank:

If you can _____________, you can learn to orienteer.

think

spell

see

talk shit on AttackPoint

Ok, revised the top post to provide some more context. But say
the audience is not most of us. People who might not already envision themselves as enjoying running around the woods while trying to think clearly?

Or someone with a kid who hates school because that thinking stuff is really hard?

(Boris, you're not helping me much with the project for the school for kids who are blind...)

explore

It's like a video game in real life. - an adventure in the area around you

Get to Grandmother's house...

You know, over the river and through the woods...

Put together IKEA furniture...

No wonder the sport is dying...

play

get lost.

Or something along the lines of "get lost - find yourself orienteering"

I actually like the video game one Jordan suggested. I know that at least some require having a mental map in your head of where things are and how to get to them while avoiding things so it does involve navigation. Orienteering as a reality version of virtual reality games? I feel so old...

play Minecraft
play Fortnite
play (insert any other popular video game)
use a phone

wear pajamas

So true. My brother (who used to write video games) commented after his first orienteering adventure that he did this all the time while gaming.

Thanks, keep'm coming!

Here's what I have thus far: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1iPa_U-CTm2vGe2kW...

(Class is on Public Engagement with Science)

@cmpbllv: Very nice, I'll save a link to that document! :-)

correction: think CRITICALLY

I described it once to a friend as a giant scavenger hunt for adults. (of course you wouldn't add in the adult part for the kids). ;-)

@GhostGirl - that's a good one. The curriculum I'm working on starts out with a scavenger hunt for features that show up on a map.

If you can remember things
If you can imagine things
If you can follow a sewing pattern
If you can ignore those saying "you can only if"
If you can ignore those who told you "you cannot"
If you can put together a LEGO toy from a pattern
If you can put together a LEGO toy from imagination
If you ever wondered how everything would look if the first explorers would have put S at the top of the page [or East or West for that matter]
..... we actually could have been there....
Love this article from BBC http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160614-maps-have...

If you can find the bathroom in the middle of the night without turning on the lights...
If you don't care where North is when someone asks you for directions, but are still able to direct them to get there using colorful descriptions...

Nice! Now I need to find some more pictures...

If you can read a street directory - but most people won't know what those are, these days.

If you can catch a Pokemon

If you can stand going outdoors...

be bothered

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs ...
If you can trust yourself when all doubt you.....
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim.....
If you can fill the minute with 60 seconds of distance run .....
etc. etc
You'll be an orienteer.
(Thanks to JRK)

Sit with elders of the gentle race this world has seldom seen

It's like a video game in real life...

... except not the kind of video game that takes place in an apocalyptic hellscape or other hostile environment full of things trying to kill you (often, admittedly, in fully justified self defence).

it can be with your imagination!

Drive. Driving is very similar to orienteering, in the sense that it integrates moving through space with executing a set of directions (turns, speed changes, lane changes.) And the way people relate to driving navigation instructions is often closely analogous to the way we do the same thing in orienteering, using collecting and catching features, simplifying, memorizing, being aware of direction and distance traveled.

Awesome! There's another one I want to build in if I have time.

Thanks, everyone, for your good ideas. I started this line of thinking because my non-orienteering grad school classmates gave me feedback that they thought kids (and adults) would be more likely to try orienteering if we could relate it to something they already knew how to do. Food for thought, perhaps, as we all work on our own outreach campaigns. Perhaps we underestimate just how intimidating our sport might be to prospective newcomers?

The sport is super intimidating, at least in the US. People are intimidated by maps, people are intimidated by woods, people are intimidated by races and meets. So maybe it should be, “if you can stroll in the park you can learn to orienteer”.

Orienteering is very offensive. A millennial can be easily offended by an arrogant course setter who designed a course over one's head, by harsh weather, by dirty trails, by poor cell phone reception (no way to check FB while on the course).
Selecting the winner purely by best time is HUGELY offensive for a poor snowflake.
This is very judgemental!!! One tiny improvement is that now they deduct time it takes to cross the road. I suggest to go further and design a safe-space control, or two, on each course, with soothing warm tea and relaxing music, where one can take a break and send a few tweets.

If you can find your car in a parking lot...

If you can ski at a large area staying on skill appropriate trails and find your way back the base.

if you are willing to give it a go after reading yurets' comments

@ anonymous, develop your CRITICAL THINKING skills, this way one day you may start enjoying going orienteering. For starters, watching this video may bring some life-changing results:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-mju_gW3c8

dnp has probably been orienteering as long (or longer than) you have, yurets.

That's a cart before the horse, Yurets. By going orienteering one develops those critical thinking (and problem solving) skills.
Sorry but not going to watch a link where multiple re-links seem to be required.

@ JanetT: My first orienteering start was in early spring 1979, that is before the sport came to America

Gordhun, problem-solving is a lower level, maybe 1-2 out of 10, while the critical thinking is the highest level of cognitive ability

@yurets Am I misunderstanding how years work. Are 1941, 1967, and 1971 (depending on your definition of "came to America") all after 1979?

I think with yurets you have to assume that about 87% of what he writes is just made up nonsense, and the other 34% is confusion.

Yeah, 1971 was before 1979, but 1941 does not count. My bad.

Cristina is angry. She could use help of an emotional-support animal

By 1979, we already had the Billygoat. Even I orienteered in 1978.

1979 US Champs were at Silvermine I believe

Yes they were. 1975 North American Champs were at Bear Brook (NH). Those were both groundbreaking maps. Silvermine still stands up pretty well today.

read a Google Map

I was born before orienteering came to yurets.

In Soviet Russia you come to orienteering,
In Down Under orienteering comes to you!

Orienteering Canada celebrated its 50th anniversary two years ago. It was founded in 1967 as the Canadian Orienteering Federation.

If you can do a puzzle...
I also like the video game analogy although it wouldn't be relevant to everyone.