Orienteering is a sport in which the participants use a detailed map to go
from one point to another. The participants must start from a pre-
determined location and then proceed from one "control point" to another
until they arrive at the final location. This activity, which is often
called the "thinking sport", helps students learn to make maps, to read
maps, and to use a compass.
In our program it also involves activities that help students identify both
natural and man-made features in their surroundings. Students create maps,
interpret maps and sometimes use a compass to find their way around the
orienteering courses which have been established outside the high school
building.
Students take Orienteering for 5 to 10 weeks of the school year. A
culminating activity may occur near the end of the unit to provide some
orienteering students the opportunity to use the various skills they have
learned in the Orienteering Program. Some classes may go to Baird Park or to
Sharpe Reservation and use their navigation skills on a more elaborate
orienteering course that is much larger and more challenging than he courses
they have been exposed to at our high school.
