Bushcraft skills

How about Organising camp. ie. the layout,tent placement for safety etc, hygeine, rubbish disposal,types of latrines, urinals etc,washing, drying, tying lines. Furnishing the camp, making utensils. This ties in with ropework and knife safety.

Environmental etiquette and related know-how. When I was instructing I used to get them to play a game of pictionary where they had access to one aspect of the environmental care code and then they had to express it through drawing a picture and the rest of the group had to guess it. You can put the care code item on a card and give each member of the group one card each. At last count there were 9 items but you can split them up further. Teaching them to light a fire in the rain is a good trick too! Kids love fires. A huge morale booster as well. But it may not be PC any more. One time our chief instructor just got everyone to bring a fat little candle each. It was not the same by a long shot. I did miss that fire! If you have a fire, you can do cooking with foil too and dampers on a stick as well as the ever popular marshmellows (and spuds). For knots, something to tension up the guy ropes e.g. rolling hitch, tension hitch. I would give them a diagram of how to do the knots as we don't all learn and memorise knots from one exposure/demonstration. Getting them to use rocks, logs and plants instead of pegs is a good thing to know when putting up tents. River crossing: At least when not to cross a river and then how to cross a river! One time I showed them a river safety video and got each kid to write down a safety point from the video and then they could share the points amongst them. My favourite was "go with the c--t" (current spelt with 4 letters by mistake). After each kid wrote down a safety point, they would put it up at the front or in a circle and pick up another point from the pile and write down that point so they learned from each other but it was physical as well. But not competitive as that stops learning. You could show them the poisonous plants (tutu and how it killed elephants in NZ) and the edible plants. You could get them to gather dead material and construct a shelter and give them tips on survival if lost. For kids, it's "babes in the woods" hunker down stuff. Good strategy for adults too of course sometimes. For them to learn, they need to have fun and have successful and achieveable outcomes, not be set up to fail.

Cheers guys. Good to see you are reading my posts. Keep the ideas coming. Been a while since I did this stuff. Forgotten what I know

Aaaah, so *that's* why NZ doesn't have elephants ! PS : I'd add the Alpine Butterfly knot to the list (maybe for the advanced group) - a climbing knot that is easily untied after being weighted.

To this day i use a clove hitch and an alpine butterfly nearly every day.

Teach them about the endemic flora and fauna. First thing I did with my boys is taught them which plants they could eat. Which tree was which where to find koura how to catch an eel with a piece of string, sock and scrap of meat.

Id add a bowline to the list of useful knots.

Belay that bowline and replace with a figure 8 knot. Figure 8 is easier to tie and stronger but also the bowline has a nasty trick if used in a situation where negative pressure comes on the knot. I was show this by a working at heights instructor who was an x fireman. He tied a bowline then flicked it inwards and back out. Result no more bowline. He described his reaction when shown this as turning white. His instructor asked why. He replied that during fire training they were taught to run out of the tower while tieing the bowline behind their back so the rope would arrest the fall. He had done this hundreds of times and taught others the same thing. Every time the knot was put under the exact conditions that could make it undo. I used to use the bowline a lot. Not now.

@geeves: that is interesting. Also interesting that the bowline never actually failed in those circumstances.