Table Of ContentAdventure Education
This essential guide promotes learning through activity-centred adventure experiences,
providing advice, skill development, social education and personal development for
practitioners, teachers, support staff and youth groups.
This book offers advice and practical guidance on planning, setting up and running
adventure education sessions with children and young people. Divided into two parts, it gives
an overview of adventure education, explaining how it relates to holistic and outdoor learning
and how it encourages active engagement from the learners as well as the instructors.
Adventure Education provides a toolkit of various games and activities that can be used
with groups of young children, including parachute games, card and musical activities, and
climbing and traversing games. This book will be essential reading for all early years
practitioners, primary teachers and support staff wanting to develop their skills and deliver
adventure learning effectively, as well as youth groups looking to provide both informal
learning and physical opportunities.
Linda Ritson has worked with all ages of children and young people in a range of practitioner
roles for many years and is currently employed in Children’s Services with Nottinghamshire
County Council, UK.
Adventure Education
Fun games and activities for children and young people
Linda Ritson
First published 2016
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2016 Linda Ritson
The right of Linda Ritson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and
78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Ritson, Linda, author.
Title: Adventure education : fun games and activities for children and young people
/ Linda Ritson.
Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2016. | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015047920| ISBN 9781138119956 (hardback) | ISBN
9781138119963 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781315652016 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Activity programs in education—Great Britain. | Educational
games—Great Britain. | Adventure games—Great Britain.
Classification: LCC LB1027.25 .R58 2016 | DDC 371.30941—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015047920
ISBN: 978-1-138-11995-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-11996-3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-65201-6 (ebk)
Typeset in Optima
by FiSH Books Ltd, Enfield
Contents
List of figures
Preface
PART I THE THEORY
1 Introduction to adventure learning
2 A brief philosophy and history
3 Holistic learning
4 Defining adventure and adventure learning
5 Uniting the West and the East
6 Adventure learning and the school curriculum
7 Learning and developing
8 The team and its leadership
9 The adventure learning instructor
10 The adventure participant
11 Risk assessment
12 The adventure curriculum
13 Delivery of adventure learning
14 Outcomes of adventure learning
15 Theories associated with adventure learning
16 Theories associated with leadership and management
PART II THE TOOLKIT
17 Introduction to the toolkit
18 Practical considerations
19 Being an adventure learning instructor
20 Icebreakers and energisers
21 Teambuilding games
22 Wide games
23 Problem-solving games
24 Parachute games
25 Musical games
26 Card games
27 Just being outdoors
28 More adventurous activities
Canoe and kayak games
Raft games
Archery games
Climbing games
Bouldering games
Traversing games
29 Why review activities and games?
30 Tools for reviewing
31 And finally …
Appendix 1 Sample lesson plans
Appendix 2 Survival game scenarios
Appendix 3 Sample risk assessment
Appendix 4 Sample route card
Indexes
List of figures
1 Increasing learning capacity by increasing the senses engaged
2 Our emotive drivers of learning
3 Maslow’s pyramid (hierarchy) of needs
4 The ‘chakra’ system
5 The ‘chakra’ hierarchy
6 The relationship of needs to chakras
7 Reflective learning through adventure experiences
8 Learning through balancing risk with competence
9 The states of learning
10 The briefing phase
11 The crest phase
12 The debriefing phase
13 The phases form a wave
14 Maslow’s pyramid (hierarchy) of needs
15 Experiential learning cycle
16 Adair’s ‘three circles’ of management responsibilities
17 Herzberg’s motivators and hygiene factors
18 The four possible combinations of factors
19 The incident pit
20 Four- and six-figure grid references
21 The cardinal and intercardinal points of a compass
22 Basic land compass components
Preface
Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is
stupid.
(Attributed to Albert Einstein)
We all know that we’re different from everyone else – we’re individuals and not like
everyone around us – so it follows that we will all learn in different ways. Yet when we start
school there is the one single method of teaching, which doesn’t suit everyone; we simply
aren’t biologically wired to sit at a desk and listen to a teacher, absorbing and understanding
what is being talked at us. A mechanic doesn’t learn how to fix cars by listening or reading a
book, nor does a hairdresser, a computer programmer, a doctor or a solicitor; there comes a
point where the theory has been covered and the learner has to go out and learn by doing,
practically putting into use that which they have read and heard. The same goes for school
learning. There is a definite place for classroom learning, but subjects and concepts are more
meaningful if the learner can get ‘hands on’, putting them into practice for themselves,
perhaps making mistakes and working things through for themselves.
This book is aimed primarily at educators, with the ambition to encourage them to
externalise the classroom and develop lessons that are beyond the ‘chalk and talk’ of tradition.
In National Curriculum terms, I see this book as being of principal interest to educators at Key
Stages 1 and 2, primarily because there is greater use of external providers at Key Stage 3 and
above. However, Part II (the toolkit) is of potential interest to anyone looking for inspiration
to add that extra element to their programme that will enthuse and invigorate their learning
audience.
Part I
The Theory
