LNT Wannabes

Oh, happy day!

I'm a Leave No Trace Master Educator and really believe the message of minimizing impact when experienceing the outdoors is an important one to distribute across scouting.

Before the PLC meeting this week, I asked the SPL if he could try to find 3 scouts willing to present the seven Leave No Trace principles to the rest of the troop. At the PLC, he asked and three 9th grade scouts from the Phoenix patrol stepped right up and said they'd do it.

The plan is that they will meet with me for about 45 minutes to go over the seven training activities, then practice them, then be ready to present the principles in 30 minute blocks at 2 upcoming troop meetings. Each guy will do one principle and the troop, broken in groups, will rotate through the three stations.

The outcome of these training sessions are on multiple levels. All the scouts that attend will be introduced to the LNT concepts and they'll hopefully take some of it to heart. These three instructing scouts will know a few principles very well and will gain some cred as experts in the troop. I'll get to do some training of scouts so they can train others.

But, even more importantly, the scouts will get experience in interactive training rather than the 'lecture' training that is the common lazy way to 'teach' (and doesn't work). All of the training is actually short games and activities that drive home the principle with a short reflection after the activity. The troop will break into patrols so each instructor will have a small group doing the activity.

Small groups, interaction, reflection afterwards - aaaaah, a perfect educational experience. Well, theoretically anyway. :-) I'll let you know. This is the training environment I continually promote, but we still occasionally have scouts 'teaching' others by reading the information from the Scout Handbook.

Hey, if you would like to do some similar LNT training in your troop, just holler at me. I can send you some info on what is planned.

Scout On