Training Techniques - Be Considerate of Others

The following techniques focus on ways to teach the benefits of neutral coloured tents and gear and respecting others in the outdoors.

Sound Game

Objective: To raise the awareness of your group to their surroundings.
Materials: None.
Audience: Any age it is difficult with very active children, it is good to leave it until they are a tired.
Duration: 10 to 15 min.

Directions:
When out in a natural place - forest, wood, countryside, mountain etc. gather everyone together and explain to them, that they must find a nice quiet and comfortable spot to sit in or stand. There they will close their eyes for 1 or 2 minutes. You decide on the time. They are to listen, as they hear different sounds, they should put up a finger for every sound that they hear. When the time is up, ask everyone to come together and sit in a circle. Share the different sounds they heard. If there were any human noises such as traffic or screaming from other people, ask them if they liked those noises here. No judgements, if they say yes or no, you can ask why, but there is no right or wrong answers to this, you just want them to think about it.

What Can You See?

Objective: To get people looking at the effect that loud colours have in a natural environment.
Audience: Any age.
Materials: A range of clothing, around 20 items of subtle coloured clothing (browns , blues, greens) and 20 items of extremely bright coloured clothing (fluorescent yellow, orange, purple, etc).
Duration: 10 min.

Directions:
This needs to be carried out outdoors. Pick a good location that contains a few obstacles in it such as rocks, bushes, trees. Hide the clothes in and around this area. Ask people to walk through the section of path. Afterwards when everyone has had a look, ask were there more brightly coloured clothes or dark clothes? Usually people notice the bright colours more, and will usually over estimate the amount of them or underestimate the amount of subtle coloured clothing. If you wish this can also be done with pieces of coloured card, placed along a trail.

Be Considerate Activity

Objective: To gain an understanding of how people can affect other visitors’ experiences while in the outdoors.
Materials: N/A. Activity must be conducted outside.
Audience: All ages. Four or more participants.
Duration: 15 to 30 min.

Directions:
Group 1 is going to walk along the trail, they are not going to say hello or get off the trail, they can be pushy, loud and very rude.
Group 2 is going to be having lunch just off the trail, about 100 feet, making lots of noise and singing; they might even throw an apple core in the direction of the path.
Group 3 will be 200ft from the trail, laughing softly having fun, looking at the scenery and being unobtrusive.
Group 4 will just be walking along, saying hello to other groups, quiet, polite and easy going, they just walk past the first group.

At the end gather the groups together and discuss what groups were the most pleasant to meet, and did you feel anyimpact on your experience by meeting people behaving in this way. Ask the participants how they felt when they encountered the other groups and discuss how this could affect their outdoor experience.

Close Encounters of the Unkind

Objective: To explore how other peoples actions can affect your outdoor experience.
Materials: Some items that could be useful, but are not
necessary - a mobile phone, small radio, brightly coloured clothing etc.
Audience: 8yrs and over. Groups of any size.
Duration: 30 to 45 min.

Directions:
This activity must be done outside. Before taking the group on a short hike the leader needs to recruit several people to play the role of the less than considerate visitors. These visitors are placed along the trail that the group will soon be hiking on. As the group passes these visitors they will act out their roles:
• Taking a break in the middle of the trail with gear spread out that needs to be stepped over.
• Talking loudly on a mobile phone.
• Screaming to other people in their party.
• Having a dog off its lead.
• Listening to a loud radio.

Follow-up/Discussion: After the group is led on a hike past these visitors, you can debrief by asking the following questions:
• How did it feel to share the trail with these visitors?
• How did their behaviour affect your trip?
• How could they have behaved in a more ‘Leave No Trace’ manner?
• What could you say to these visitors to encourage them to alter their behaviour?

The group is able to identify undesirable behaviour in the outdoors, by doing so they will be able to reduce their social impact on others when recreating.

Variation: If more people are available you could place them along the trail as considerate visitors. This could lead to a discussion about their behaviour.

Its Not Just You

Objective: To identify the no. of different users of the countryside and the considerations we must make to all work together.
Materials: Flipchart/whiteboard.
Audience: Any age.
Duration: 30 min and over.

Directions:
This is a simple discussion, beginning with, each person saying the different activities they like to do outdoors, as each new activity comes up write it on the board. Now once everyone is finished, ask have we left any users off the countryside out? Again go around allowing people to suggest other users, such as farmers, ecologists, rangers, forestry workers etc. Now put to your group, some discussion ideas:
• Do our activities impact on any of the other users, and how?
• How can we be more aware and considerate of other users?
• What is the difference between recreation and livelihood?
• Does one have more of a right to the land than the other?
• How would they feel if their work could be impacted by the general public?

Smile!

Objective: To demonstrate how things are easier and better when we are all polite to each other.
Materials: A pen.
Audience: 8yrs and over. Groups of any size.
Duration: 10 to 15 min.

Directions:
Gather your group into a circle, you begin and hold the pen as though you are going to draw in the air in front of you. Draw a face, two eyes and a smile, as you are doing this say: “Here is a face, two eyes and a smile!” Hand the pen to the person next to you and indicate that they should do the same. When you handed that person the pen, if they said thank you, cheers, anything like that, the face they draw is excellent, if on the other hand they did not say thank you, then the face they draw is terrible - they got it wrong and must pass it to the next person. You need to watch and listen to people to see if they are saying thank you anyone who says thank you has got the trick and their face is correct. You will notice the people who haven’t caught on to the joke, getting very frustrated and confused. To ensure that a few people catch on early make sure you say “THANK YOU” loud enough for everyone to hear, but not too obvious that you give the game away. It is often handy to have another leader in on the game so that they will be doing it correctly too.

User Conflict Game

Objective: This game demonstrates different users in the same area and how knowledge and consideration can influence our experience.
Materials: Some rope to mark off a square or four objects to mark the corners. Also some slips of paper with different activities marked on them.
Audience: Any age. Groups of any size.
Duration: 20 to 30 mins.

Directions:
Pass to each person a slip of paper with one of the roles marked on it (see list below). Mark out a square, the size will depend on the amount of people you have for the activity, but it should be small enough so that they end up on top of each other when doing the different activities. It is very important for the first part of this game that people do not tell each other what they are doing and ask them to discuss the difficulties after. (If it is a small group try blindfolding them for the first time they go into the square, they are to carry out their activity without thinking about anyone else). The next step is after they talk with you about how difficult it was with all the people doing different things together, get them to go back in the square but this time they will tell each other what they are doing and say please and thank you. Swimmers let canoeists by and walkers step off for mountain bikers and horse- riders, people ask farmers to use their land, Things should run much more smoothly and give everyone a good idea of how things could be in real life if people took the time to be considerate.
• Footballer • Farmer • Fisherman
• Hill walker • Cyclist • Mountain Biker
• Hunter • Forester • Dog Walker
• Canoeist • Girl guide/scout • Swimmer
• Horse rider • Rock climber

Cliff Rock Role Play

Objective: To demonstrate that some of us cannot see the consequences of our actions.
Materials: A few props for the people taking part and a location with one path above another.
Audience: Any age. Groups of any size.Duration: 20 min.

Directions:
Two groups are needed for this. The first one is a group of loud, people running about, jumping up on trees, throwing rocks down a cliff, seeing how far they could throw them. They are shouting, singing and drinking alcohol too. At one point one of them picks up a big stone and tries to throw it but it just rolls down the cliff instead. (This group need to be walking on a higher piece of ground than the second). Meanwhile … The second group were out to do some scrambling or a bit of steep ground walking or rock climbing and they were near the base of the cliff where the others were walking above. They are having a nice walk and hike, planning on getting to the top of the ridge (where the others are) and they see this rock rolling down the hill and it hits one of them breaking their leg. To conclude the first group meets the second group. They try to help them figure out what happened. They then realise it was them and leave before the second group understand it too.

Two Paths Diverged

Objective: To have participants explore their own thoughts about what is considered to be appropriate behaviour in the outdoors.
Materials: Pre-made cards with the scenarios below.
Duration: 15 to 30 min.
Audience: All ages. Groups of any size.

Directions:
Hand out the scenario cards and ask the participants (as an individual or in small groups depending on group size) to discuss the ideas and questions presented and to report them back to the group.
Examples of cards are as follows:
• Is using a mobile phone in the wilderness an impact to other users, even if the person is just having a normal conversation on the trail? How is it the same? How is it different?
• Large hill walking groups are common on our hills in Ireland, does meeting one of them take away from the solitude and experience you wish to have. Or is it great to see so many people enjoy our mountains and there is also safety in numbers, is it comforting to know you are not alone in the mountains? Is using GPS in view of others an impact on their experience? Why or why not? What about if you need to roll out a small solar charger to recharge it? How does this technology differ from things like camp stoves or Gore-Tex, for example?
• Lots of climbers use chalk to keep their hands free from sweat. The result is that white spots develop on popular climbs, making them visible to the non-climber. Aren’t chalk spots the same as blazes on a trail? How about fixed climbing bolts? Rock climbing requires good communication. This often means shouting to each other. Shouting can impact others experiences. One alternative is to use radios, but that introduces more technology into the outdoor experience. Which seems like the best option?

The point of this activity is to spur a dialogue amongst your participants. Challenge them to consider practices that they might be doing in the countryside that could impact other users experience and to consider how they could change those practices.

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