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.