Session Plan

Equipment List / List of Materials
Projector / Pencils (for schools)
Speakers / Pens
Lesson plan / Stickers (for children)
Rope / Outdoor ethics leaflets
Wildlife identification guide books / Posters (for schools)
Net / Certificates
Bivy bag / Flip chart
First aid kit / Mini White boards
Flask / Pens/ markers
Backed Blankets for sitting outside / Rulers
Fire blanket / Laminated cards & scenarios for activities
Bucket for soil/sand / Laminated copy of games details
Feedback form / Blue tack
Trainer Course Report sheet / Thumb tacks
Uniform / Camera

*Check you have the materials needed for the individual activities you plan to carry out*

9 amWelcome & Introduction

Hi my name is x and I am from Leave No Trace Ireland. It is so nice to be here, thank you for having me. Today we are going to be looking at the effects of recreational activities on our environment and ways to reduce this through some fun activities, games and informal chats most of which will take place outside, weather permitting!

There will be a half hour break at 11 am and an hour for lunch from 1 – 2 pm. The toilets are x (point out location of toilets) and please stop me at any time if you have any questions. I hope you all enjoy the day which I hope you will find both enjoyable and informative.

9.10 am Introduction to Leave No Trace Ireland – the organisation

Leave No Trace Ireland is an Outdoor Ethics educational program which strives to promote and inspire personal responsibility for all outdoor enthusiasts so that ultimately we all have a role in protecting our wonderful natural environment for continued sustainable enjoyment of it.

Leave No Trace was officially launched in Ireland in 2006 to encourage responsible outdoor recreation through education, research and partnerships. The programme strives to build awareness, appreciation and respect for Ireland’s natural and cultural heritage. The Leave No Trace message can be applied in Ireland’s uplands and lowlands, beaches, parks, forests, on lakes and rivers as well as in local neighbourhoods.

I am a Level x trainer and have experience in x (each trainer gives level of training and individual experience).

You will each have a pen and paper in front of you, please write answers to the following 3 questions;

  • What do you already know about Leave No Trace?
  • What would you like to know?
  • Any other wild ideas?

(Very Important and necessary. Have a pre written flipchart to report back to at end of session)

(**Make links/connections between activities**)

9.30 amTake the group outside for Icebreaker – (3 sample icebreakers below)

Example 1; Pairs:

  • Write down the name of famous duos on separate pieces of paper. E.g. Thelma – Louise, Bonnie – Clyde, Batman – Robin. (This could be done in relation to irish Wildlife also e.g. pair Irish mammals with the name of its young – Hare & Leveret, Otter & Cub etc. or Irish Mammals and the name of their home – Badger & Sett, Pine Martin & Den etc. A pairing could also be made with Native Irish trees and their fruit – Oak & Acorn, Ash & Keys etc.)
  • Stick one piece of paper to the underside of each participant’s chair prior to them arriving, If outside each participant could pull a name from a bag.
  • Ask the participants to read the piece of paper and find their respective partners, explaining what the pairing is about i.e. a native Irish mammal and it young etc.
  • Ask them to elicit their partner’s real name, previous paddling experience, and reason for completing the instructor training course.
  • Write the responses onto a white board or flip chart and discuss briefly

Questions:

  • Prepare a list of personal description, e.g. someone who has jumped out of a plane, someone who is a teacher, and print off prior to the course. Ask participants to find a person who can match each description.

Example 2; Clint Eastwood

  • Participants stand in circle with the Tutor in the centre. All whistle the classic Clint Eastwood The Good, the bad and the ugly theme tune.
  • Tutor spins around, holding fingers in the shape of a gun.
  • The Tutor stops and shoots one of the participants, and shouts “bang”
  • That participant ducks down, the two participants either side have a quick draw. Last one to shoot the other and say bang is on in the centre, Tutor moves out of the circle.
  • Game continues in this way until there are only two people left who have a back to back shoot off, walking away from each other until the tutor claps his/her hands, they then turn and shoot.

Example 3; Animal Alphabet

  • The leader starts with the name of an animal that starts with the letter "A." From there, go around the circle and have each person say the name of animal each beginning with the next letter in the alphabet.
  • This could be altered to the name of flora and fauna found in Ireland.
  • First see if you can get to the end of the alphabet and then see how many times you can complete the alphabet as a team.

9.50amPlan Ahead and Prepare Activity:

Name of the Game: Pack a Bag

Objective: To stress the importance of knowing the details of a trip so you can adequately prepare.

Materials: A couple of rucksacks and a range of equipment that you would bring on a picnic or short trip.

Location: Outdoors or indoors – activity is most effective when done outdoors.

Audience: 12 years and over: Group size of no more than 30.

Duration: 20 minutes.

Description: Before the activity begins place all the items in a basket or container (so the kids can rummage through). Split your group in to smaller groups; ensure you have a rucksack for each group and have double or triples of the equipment).. Set the context for the activity by discussing the idea of planning ahead for an event or trip. Tell your group you are going on a trip and they need to pack a bag to bring what they will need, using the equipment provided. If they ask any questions you can answer them, but only answer the question they ask and no more! The aim is to show them that if they do not ask any questions about where they are going, they will not be able to pack adequately for the trip.

Below is the information that you have on the trip they will take. As they ask questions about their trip, you can give out the details of the trip.

The scenario: A picnic with friends for the day with a short stroll afterwards. There will be rain, their friend will twist and ankle and the farmer won’t let them onto their original place.

When the participants ask a question, you must supply them with the full answer. Such as are we allowed to go on the land? And you answer no, you do not have permission, but you have an alternative ready straight away. It is useful if you have multiple groups, to note what questions each group asked.

Possible questions they may ask or you can suggest at the end of the activity:

•Did they check there was access onto the land?

•Did they leaveearly enough to allowfor everythingthey wanted to do?

•Did they bring a first aid kit?

•Did they bring protection from the weather?

•Did they bring a few sweets to keep the spirits up when things were lookingbleak?

Now the trip begins and you narrate it:

Where you were planning on going, the landowner no longer lets people onto his land.

•Have you checked forpermission foraccess on to the land? YES: But you checked beforehand and are ready to go to another place without delay. NO: You have to choose another site. Making it later in the day than planned and a site they do not know.

•Do they have a map and compass? They don’t know this new site. YES: On the walk you get lost but as you have a map and compass you are able to find your way easily, but people are a little tired and someone sprains their ankle. NO: On the walk you get lost as you don’t know the area, people are getting tired and careless and someone sprains their ankle making them move slowly.

•Do you have afirst aid kit and a phone for emergencies? YES: So you can bandage up the ankle and help the friend back along the path and call for help. (Along the path back to the road your friend feels a bit better and you all stop to have some of your picnic). NO: You need to help your friend to the entrance but with no bandages they are in a lot of pain, and with no phone you will have to help them all the way home. (Making it very late when you get there).

•Finallyit begins to rain downon them very heavily.Have they asked about the weather? YES: They will have been told about the weather and will have brought rain gear so they simply put on the rain gear and walk to the place to be picked up and they are home before dinner. NO: The walk takes even longer, and it is after dark when they arrive home, wet, cold hungry and tired.

Debrief: Finish up, discussing how important it is to ask questions about what you will need and where you are going. Round off the activity by reiterating the key points from the activity, and refer to principle Plan Ahead and Prepare.

10.15amBe Considerate of Others Activity

Name of Game: Be Considerate Activity (A group role play game).

Objective: To gain an understanding of how people can impact on the experience of others whilst enjoying Irelands natural environment. This activity is good fun and can be used to help a group engage with each other.

Materials: Cards with group descriptions written on. A Karimat, or similar, for the picnic group to sit on.

Location: Must be Outdoors, ideally along a path.

Duration: 15 - 30 minutes.

Audience: Any age. Four or more participants.

Description: If appropriate share the objective of this activity with your group.

Identify or mark out a length of path about 100m long.

Divide participants into 4 groups.

Give each one a card with the following scenarios written on them:

Group 1: Walk along the path. Your group is loud, rude and almost aggressive.

Group 2: Have a picnic lunch about 5metres off the path. Make lots of noise (music, singing, laughing). You may even throw some rubbish in the direction of the path.

Group 3: Stand 50 metres from the path. Laugh softly and appear to be having fun. Look at the scenery and be unobtrusive.

Group 4: Walk pleasantly along the path saying hello to the other groups. Be quiet, polite and easy going. Walk in the opposite direction to the other groups and don’t get engaged with their behaviour.

Have a clear start and stop signal as role-plays can sometimes take on a life of its own. Also, be prepared for a very short activity, as some groups may not engage.

Give the groups a minute or so to consider their roles then shout START. Shout STOP when it comes naturally to an end after about 3-4 minutes.

Gather everyone together and prompt a discussion on how each groups’ behaviour affected others:

• Which groups were the most pleasant to meet?

• Which type of behaviour is common?

Debrief: Round of the activity by reiterating the key learning points from the activity and relate back to the Leave No Trace principle. Does doing this role play encourage people to consider their own behaviour when outside?

10.45am Ending Icebreaker – Spectrum of Choice

11am`Coffee Break

11.30amOutside

Name of Game: Is Leave No Trace relevant to Ireland?/ Discover Ireland

Objective: To reach a consensus with participants that Leave No Trace is useful by acknowledging the damage that has been done to Ireland’s natural environment and that there is a need to prevent further human impacts.

Materials: A length of rope and two sets of different coloured stones or objects.

Location: Outdoors.

Duration: 20-45 minutes.

Audience: 12 years and over. For young children you could scale the activity down by making a map of their locality.

Description: To begin, use the rope to make a rough outline of the shape of Ireland. Now gather all the participants together around your ‘rope map’ and begin with explaining that this is meant to be Ireland.

Now you need to ask everyone to go and find two white stones and two black stones, if you are in an area where this is not possible, suggest another object or pass out the stones or objects you have brought.

Ask everyone to think of their two favourite outdoor places in Ireland. When they have decided on their two places, they should place their white stones on the map in the correct position relating to where these places are situated in Ireland.

Once this is done, ask everyone then to think of two places, where they saw or experienced the land being misused or badly impacted. It can be anything that they feel impacted on their experience in a negative way. And again ask them to place their black stones on the map to represent these places. At this point, it is valuable to go around and ask everyone what places their stones represent and what the impact was that they encountered.

Now ask everyone to look at the map taking in the amount of black and white stones and lead into a discussion:

•Invite the participants to acknowledge the negative impacts caused by recreational use;

•Facilitate some discussion on the origin and extent of these negative impacts;

•Focus views on whether these activities can be reversed or minimised in future;

•Lead into Leave No Trace as a vehicle for this behaviour change.

Debrief: Round off the activity by reiterating the key learning points from the activity and relate back to Leave No Trace principles. Encourage participants to reach a consensus on the potential of Leave No Trace in Ireland.

12noonDispose of Waste Properly Activity

Name of Game: Breakdown Game.

Objective: To provide a visual and hands-on method to explain how long it takes for different materials to decompose.

Materials: 11 pictures of the following items or the items themselves.

• Somesheets of newspaper, a banana peel, a wool item (e.g. socks), cigarette butt, disposable nappy, tin can, aluminium can glass bottle, 6 pack plastic ring holder, hard plastic bottle (water or juice bottles), a rubber tyre and 11 printed cards or pages.

Each card/page contains a single time period (e.g. 10-20 years), to represent the number of years it takes for each of the items to decompose.

Audience: All ages. Groups of any size. Duration: 15 - 20 minutes.

Description: Distribute each of the pictures, one to each participant, or as many to each participant as necessary to distribute all of them, as evenly as possible.

Distribute the cards/pages with the times marked on them in a similar manner. Try to ensure that no one is holding a picture that matches its associated time page/ card.

Have the participants roam around trying to figure out what pictures match up with what time periods. As they make their matches, you can comment on their accuracy and have them try to correct any errors.

See below for a list of the decomposition rates for common items:

-Cigarette butt...... 1to 5 years

-Aluminium can...... 80 to 100 years

-Plastic 6-pack Holder...... 100 years

-Orange or Banana Peel ...... Up to 2 years

-Plastic Film Container...... 20 to 30 years

-Plastic Bag ...... 10 to 20 years

-Glass Bottle ...... 1,000,000 years

-Plastic Coated Paper...... 5 years

-Nylon Fabric...... 30 to 40 years Leather...... 1 to 5 years

-Wool Sock...... 1 to 5 years

-Tin Can...... 50 years

Debrief: Round of the activity by reiterating the key learning points from the activity and relate back to the Leave No Trace principle. This activity gets the participants to talk to each other to figure out how long each item takes to decompose. When they finish, you can line the items up in order of time from the shortest to the longest time of decomposition.

12.20pmTravel and Camp on Durable Ground Activity

Name of Game: Satellite Trails.

Objective: To demonstrate how easily ‘satellite’ trails are created.

Materials: N/A

Location: A meadow or grassy area works best for this activity.

Duration: 15 minutes.

Audience: All ages. Groups of any size.