Help with simulated Survival Training

[familynut]

Hi all survival experts or almost experts:

I am looking for ideas to help with a short 4 day 3 night simulated wilderness survival for a group of 6 to 8 boy scouts ages 13 to 17 and 2 or 3 adults.

We will be camping in a National Grassland park and doing lots of hiking over 3 of the 4 days. We will not be allowed to kill any wild life but I will bring an animal to be killed and to be eaten.

I did this 4 years ago and want something different this time. Last time I had different senarios that they had to solve and practice. Such as:
1. They were each given 1/4lb of hamberger, a lg potato, lg onion, average size orange, 2 carrots, 2 matches, and one pocket knife. with these items, they had to make their meal with no help from anyone else and could only use what they found in nature besides the items mentioned.
To SOLVE: Most cut open the onion and orange, ate the orange, choped up the onion and mixed with meat, put mizture in orange rind and in the outer layer of the oinon. put these into the fire they started from using the two matches or other means, made a mud mixture and put it on the potato and put this into the fire also. They ate the carrots. After about an hour, the potato was baked and the hamburger was done, very tasty.

2. I had them kill several chickens, skin them and prepare different ways.
3. they had to find a purfy water
4. had to build shelters to sleep in

This is just a few a the things we did.

Since many of the boys that will be at thiis years camping are the younger brothers of the first group, I need some newer ideas.

Thanks for any ideas and help relayed.

Familynut

[owl_girl]

You could have them learn what wild plants they can eat. Like cattail roots have lots of carbohydrates for energy, and young tender pine needles are good for vitamin C. my younger brother said at his school they roasted cattails, the part that gets fluffy, only they roasted them when they were still green and firm, he said they tasted like potatoes. You could also have them start a fire with something other then matches, like flint, or a magnifying glass.

[Chris]

You could try teaching more ways to cook outdoors.

One way is to dig a pit, cook some rocks in a fire until they are aching hot, put them in the put, put a bunch of green vegetation ontop of that, put your food on top of the vegetation, cover it back up. You got a steamer.

[owl_girl]

Be careful what vegetation you use some could be poisonous. Grape leaves are good.

[wareagle69]

if you can find a wild edibles expert in your area, that would be my suggestion

[familynut]

Owl Girl
I will try the catails if we find any on our hike, Good chance we will. Beyond that I don't think I will have the boys try other plants. To easy to mix the good with the bad unless we had an expert along (we don't).

I am having them start fires without matches, purifying found water, using a pit and plant materials to collect water.

We have been preparing for about a month and have another 3 weeks before the campout to help with skills before putting them to the "test"

Thanks for that idea, other situations gladly considered.

[owl_girl]

Ok cool but if you eat the cattail spikes which you can also boil I hear, make sure its still green and in its leaf wrappings or it may be to fibery. You don’t want a mouth full of fluff, Yuck. Cattail tubers should be boiled before eating. Also the shoots are edible, this website tells you how to harvest them
http://www.survivaltopics.com/surviv...attail-shoots/
No part of the cattail is poisonous though some parts may be to rough or fibery to eat.

[Sarge47]

Hi all survival experts or almost experts:

I am looking for ideas to help with a short 4 day 3 night simulated wilderness survival for a group of 6 to 8 boy scouts ages 13 to 17 and 2 or 3 adults.

We will be camping in a National Grassland park and doing lots of hiking over 3 of the 4 days. We will not be allowed to kill any wild life but I will bring an animal to be killed and to be eaten.

I did this 4 years ago and want something different this time. Last time I had different senarios that they had to solve and practice. Such as:
1. They were each given 1/4lb of hamberger, a lg potato, lg onion, average size orange, 2 carrots, 2 matches, and one pocket knife. with these items, they had to make their meal with no help from anyone else and could only use what they found in nature besides the items mentioned.
To SOLVE: Most cut open the onion and orange, ate the orange, choped up the onion and mixed with meat, put mizture in orange rind and in the outer layer of the oinon. put these into the fire they started from using the two matches or other means, made a mud mixture and put it on the potato and put this into the fire also. They ate the carrots. After about an hour, the potato was baked and the hamburger was done, very tasty.

2. I had them kill several chickens, skin them and prepare different ways.
3. they had to find a purfy water
4. had to build shelters to sleep in

This is just a few a the things we did.

Since many of the boys that will be at thiis years camping are the younger brothers of the first group, I need some newer ideas.

Thanks for any ideas and help relayed.

Familynut

As a former assistant S/M I'm glad to see you do what you're doing. My thought is always "safety first"! Knives and axes need to be handled properly.
Also "The edibility test" should be a priority on eating anything growing wild. Even Dr. Ron Hood ate a poisonous Morel once and had to be taken out of his camping trip.

[Rocky789]

Ive actually taught classes to boy scouts and have to say a competition of some sort is always a good way to go at the end. One competition was to split the scouts into teams, each team has to start a fire using whatever technique you see fit (bow drill or flint/steel) and they have to first burn a rope tied to 2 sticks at a height of 3 feet from the ground and second boil a quart of water, first group to do that wins.
Other lessons can include learning to make wooden bowls (something which can be used for cooking or boiling water.
Identifying wild edibles (In my area on the east coast most scouts just picked out plants like oak, pine, wild onion, dandelion, plantain because they already knew about them, you can decide if you wish to teach them more plants)
Using grass or different trees to make cordage.
Depending on their age and maturity you can teach them about various traps and snares.
If you have any questions or need anymore suggestions feel free to contact me, but I hope that helps.

[familynut]

Thanks Chris, Sarge47, & Rocky789.
I will use a competion as part of the trip, I like the idea of cooking in a pit and will try that also. I read about boiling water using rocks and pits, leaves ect. I will have them try different methods to see what they think will work best. And ALWAYS I am watching out for food and water safety.
Although we will be only 50 miles from home, it is still an hour or more away depending on where we are.

Any more ideas and suggetions will be considered.

I will report here how it went, but thats not til the end of August.

Familynut

[Sarge47]

Thanks Chris, Sarge47, & Rocky789.
I will use a competion as part of the trip, I like the idea of cooking in a pit and will try that also. I read about boiling water using rocks and pits, leaves ect. I will have them try different methods to see what they think will work best. And ALWAYS I am watching out for food and water safety.
Although we will be only 50 miles from home, it is still an hour or more away depending on where we are.

Any more ideas and suggetions will be considered.

I will report here how it went, but thats not til the end of August.

Familynut

Here's something that just occurred to me based on something I did a year ago last spring that I'd just posted on another thread. If I were with a group of scouts it's something that I would have them do. Every scout should have a small notepad and pen/pencil. They walk through a certain wilderness area and they write down each item they see that they think would be useful in a survival situation. At the end of the walk each one reads off their list. The one with the most gets to sit by the fire as the rest of the group fix his supper, or something like that.

[rusty_oxydado]

What about navagation classes, map reading, and having to find camp locations from a map.

[aviator survivalist]

Hi all survival experts or almost experts:

I am looking for ideas to help with a short 4 day 3 night simulated wilderness survival for a group of 6 to 8 boy scouts ages 13 to 17 and 2 or 3 adults.

We will be camping in a National Grassland park and doing lots of hiking over 3 of the 4 days. We will not be allowed to kill any wild life but I will bring an animal to be killed and to be eaten.

I did this 4 years ago and want something different this time. Last time I had different senarios that they had to solve and practice. Such as:
1. They were each given 1/4lb of hamberger, a lg potato, lg onion, average size orange, 2 carrots, 2 matches, and one pocket knife. with these items, they had to make their meal with no help from anyone else and could only use what they found in nature besides the items mentioned.
To SOLVE: Most cut open the onion and orange, ate the orange, choped up the onion and mixed with meat, put mizture in orange rind and in the outer layer of the oinon. put these into the fire they started from using the two matches or other means, made a mud mixture and put it on the potato and put this into the fire also. They ate the carrots. After about an hour, the potato was baked and the hamburger was done, very tasty.

2. I had them kill several chickens, skin them and prepare different ways.
3. they had to find a purfy water
4. had to build shelters to sleep in

This is just a few a the things we did.

Since many of the boys that will be at thiis years camping are the younger brothers of the first group, I need some newer ideas.

Thanks for any ideas and help relayed.

Familynut

actualy this is a good idea but one thing is that you gave them food that alot of it you wont find in the wilderness! chickens and hamburgers?? one guy sugested that you could have them find what plants are avalible which would be a good desision also but what would be smart would be to give them a small amount of food and have them catch or trap or gather what other food they get. (keeping some "reserve" food just incase so you dont die of starvation or something )

[familynut]

Thanks Sarge & Rusty: I do plan on them using and honing their orienteering skills to find our camp site, and I will use the idea of having them write the different things we see that could be use in a true survival situation.

Aviator: The group I had last time had all been "city-fied" and none had hunted or had to kill and prepare an animal for food. It was not that it was strange food for them but instead the process of how to get food of any living animal so we chose chickens. There is a chicken farm nearby and made this lesson easier. It was hillarious (actual kind of sad) to see 16 & 17 year old boys not want to kill the chickens to eat. It endied up being a great learning expierence for this first set of boys. Some did not eat chicken for over a year after that.

The boys this time have several hunters in the group and we plan to have minimal food available. For the boys that are not hunters we will still be killing some or several animals and preparing them. Most likely rabbit.

More ideas considered and if you have a senario or two to incorporate into this quick time period would be great.

Again many Thanks