Explorers+Camp

//The Explorers of the Interior camp was created to help introduce the 1800s, a time when many areas of the world which had never been explored by the West were penetrated. During the 1800s, the world became increasingly smaller as transportation decreased travel time, photography brought to life places people could only have imagined before, and scientific inquiry was undertaken by many intelligent explorers. So the camp focused on this time period, but I also wanted to impart some practical skills to the kids who were getting older and might find them useful!//
 * YEAR 4: The Montwellian Excavation Society’s Summer School Program for Explorers of the Interior**

As usual, I did a lot of research to give myself some background (when you do something like this you really get to know what it is you DON’T know). I knew about Lewis & Clark and some about the explorers of Africa, but I had to learn a lot about the explorers of Australia and South America. Information about explorers in South America is really just now getting attention so we were studying this topic at an opportune time. For many of the explorers, I did web searches on their names to see what new information had been posted.
 * Preparation:**

//General:// http://www.enchantedlearning.com/explorers/1800.shtml http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/List_of_explorers

//Australia////:// http://www.anzaab.com/Anzaab/articles.cfm?ArticleID=6 http://www.enchantedlearning.com/explorers/australia.shtml

//Africa////:// http://www.answers.com/topic/european-exploration-of-africa http://www.enchantedlearning.com/explorers/africa.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/11chapter2.shtml

//North America////:// http://www.mnh.si.edu/lewisandclark/index.html?loc=/lewisandclark/home.html http://www.lewis-clark.org/

//Pacific// //Islands////:// http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/expa/hd_expa.htm

//South America////:// http://www.enchantedlearning.com/explorers/samerica.shtml http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/10/sa/ht10sa.htm

I also did a lot of research for the skills I wanted the kids to have, especially the first aid and survival skills.

//First Aid Basics:// http://www.angelfire.com/ia3/camping2/firstaid.htm http://www.keepkidshealthy.com/welcome/firstaid.html http://www.cyh.com/HealthTopics/HealthTopicDetailsKids.aspx?p=335&np=285&id=1567

//Survival:// http://www.equipped.com/kidprimr.htm http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/worst_case_scenarios/1289331.html

Additionally, I wanted to do some Myers-Briggs explorations with the kids, again because they are getting older and starting to think more about who they are and where they are going. So I pulled together some information about the various personality types and printed copies of the indicator.

http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/ http://www.personalitypathways.com/type_inventory.html http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/tt/t-articl/mb-simpl.htm http://www.keirsey.com/ (I also used Keirsey’s book //Please Understand Me II//)

And one last one: //The Communication Game:// http://www.everythingesl.net/downloads/communication_game.pdf

· Since we were having this at one of the other family’s houses (they are next to a small river, which was perfect for what we wanted to do), I had a little extra time to prepare some other things. I decided to make all the kids a sash that would hold several bags of tools for their different tasks, since they would be wandering all over the place. I found some very cheap fake fur to use for the main part of the sash and used cloth sewn on the ends to make ties (the fur being a little too thick to tie).

· I had found some mulberry-paper journals at a dollar store, which I knew they could use as sketchbooks. So I made some pouches to fit them out of some of the fake leathery material you can get a fabric stores. These pouches had loops, so the sash could be woven through them. Then I made some fabric pouches out of some old-looking plaid material. These had a sleeve through which I could put the sash--they would become their first aid kits later. Next I made some muslin drawstring bags to hold a charcoal drawing pencil, an eraser, a pencil sharpener and a ruler. These were just looped over the sash to hold them on. I was a little worried the kids would think these were too dorky to wear but they surprised me (or maybe just humored me!) and wore them a lot.

· I developed the invitation to the Intrepid Explorers of the Interior summer camp ([|welcome letter to camp.pdf]), sponsored by our old favorite the Montwellian Excavation Society. I printed out the various materials I needed, including some stories to tell about the various explorers of the 1800s ([|Tales of the Explorers.doc]), a booklet of maps for them to look at while I told the stories ([|explorersmaps.pdf]), a booklet for wilderness survival (which I adapted from one of the web sites above--[|kids survival.pdf]), a first aid how-to sheet (adapted from a web site which is no longer around--[|Basic first aid.doc]), a campfire songbook ([|explorers songbook edit.doc]), examples of wildlife drawings by naturalists, pocket knife safety rules ([|pocketknifesafety.doc]), and all the various materials for giving and interpreting the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator ([|m-b The Four Preferences.doc], [|m-b short temperments desc.doc], [|m-b Portraits.doc], [|m-b instructions.doc]. I also gathered some plaster of paris for making animal print casts and some field books we could use to try to identify unknown plants and animal tracks--some other moms had some of these too.

· The kids arrived at 11:00, a little later than usual because they had to travel a little longer. They also brought their own lunches the first day, which helped a lot with logistics.
 * Schedule:**

· When they arrived, I let them eat while I introduced them the various famous explorers of the 1800s and their most outrageous exploits. I also did a quick overview of pocket knife safety, since I knew several of the kids would bring one. We covered our schedule for the two days ([|Schedule.doc]).

· Then the kids put on their bathing suits and we “portaged” our canoes down to the river (we had a few rafts to portage too!). There the kids took turns in the canoes, learning how to paddle. We let them swim and have some fun before making them come out to find animal tracks for making casts. We didn’t have a great deal of luck with finding lots of different types of prints but we did find some deer and raccoon. We used some field guides to identify the prints. I also asked the kids to write in their journals about the activities of the day.

· Later in the afternoon, the kids gathered tinder for our campfire and we cooked over a big open fire built in a pit. The kids roasted hot dogs on the fire, and we warmed up green beans in cans next to the fire, but we did have other food laid out to eat, in case hot dogs dropped into the fire!

· After dinner, I had the kids make their own first aid kits (made of things the moms brought—bandaids, antiseptic wipes, a packet of salt, sterile gauze, and safety pin) in their plaid cloth bags. Then I went over my first aid sheet (I’ve taken several Girl Scout Leader first aid classes so I did know at least a bit of what I was talking about!). They folded up these sheets and added them to the bags. I also gave them the Kid’s Wilderness Survival booklet, which was adapted completed from the web site cited above, since it was so well done, and the handout on finding your way when lost in the wood (see site above). After going over this, I passed out some funny “worst-case-scenarios” (which mirrored things that the famous explorers had done) for them to decide what the best thing to do would be ([|fun worst case scenarios.doc]). I also challenged them to remember which famous explorer had been involved in which situation.

· The kids were getting restless after sitting down so long so I sent them out to cook s’mores over the campfire and just have some fun running around. I gave them the campfire sing-along booklets but not many wanted to do that (maybe just too much sitting!).

· Later, I pulled the kids back together to do our team-building exercise, or the Myers-Briggs Indicator. I gave them directions and let them fill in the Indicator, then they could go have some more fun. I scored the Indicators.

· After breakfast the next day, we discussed their results. I let them read their profiles and the profiles of their closest buddies in the group, then I talked in general about the group’s profiles. I tried to make sure they understood that this is not an absolute sort of thing—people’s personality types do change over time. Plus, you can actively change your type if you don’t like it. Several kids, as is not unusual for kids, were on the borderline for two or more types and I let them decide which type they thought most fit them. We talked about how they can use the types to learn how to get along with others (hence the team-building), how to figure out their own strengths and weaknesses, how to think about future careers, etc.

· Their next task was to find a plant on the property that they didn’t recognize and try to figure out what it was using the guidebooks. They also needed to draw their plant and I showed them several examples of drawings from various naturalists’ journals (especially Lewis and Clark--those were very easy to find). Since I don’t know much about keying out plants, having done it a few times many MANY years ago, I didn’t have a very good plan for this activity. The guidebooks were not very helpful, being general books and covering broad geographic areas. But we did figure out some of the plants. One group of kids had picked the same plant (at least we think it was the same plant) and could not find it at all—they declared it a new plant and named it! How could I argue—I couldn’t figure it out either!

· Before lunch, we let the kids go swimming again. Then we had lunch (sandwiches) and we played the Communication game cited above. I put the kids in their teams. They had some fun with this activity, but were getting restless so I awarded their diplomas (I had found some 3-D stickers to use for each of the six different activities and had them put their own stickers on the diploma--[|Diploma.doc]). Then they headed off to get their stuff together and play a bit more before it was time to leave.