Conserve School Students Create Survival Shelters

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

This week in Field Instruction, Conserve School students spent the class period outside in the crisp autumn air collecting sticks, leaves, and bark and creating their very own wilderness forts.  The forts students created were model survival shelters that would be useful in an emergency wilderness situation.  Field Instruction Rebecca Deatsman began the lesson by going over the priorities of survival, which are shelter, water, fire, and food.  In some circumstances, shelter is the highest priority and the goal of this lesson was to improve students’ shelter building skills.   Students worked in teams to find a suitable location, gather materials, and construct a survival shelter large enough to hold all members of the team.  Logs, sticks, birch bark, and fallen leaves were used to build the shelter frame and fill in its cracks, creating what the students hoped would be a warm and dry hideout from the elements.  Buckets of water were poured over the competed shelters to test the students’ construction skills.  This shelter building lesson is part of a survival skills unit in Field Instruction.

- Graduate Fellow Maria Kopecky

Field Instructor Rebecca Deatsman illustrates how to properly build a survival shelter

Gwen, Ellie, and Kate create the frame of their shelter

Shawn works on his survival shelter

Kate, Gwen, and Ellie lay sticks on their shelter

Maia clears off a branch to be used on her shelter

Ella gathers sticks for her survival shelter

Colin works on his survival shelter

Kai during Field Instruction

Olivia and Katie place sticks on their shelter

Katie weaves branches together

Olivia constructs her survival shelter

Walton tests out the size of his shelter as Tessa looks on

Ella, Colin, and Kai work together to make their shelter

Maia adds small sticks to her shelter

Saige peels bark off a downed birch

Sune adds to his survival shelter

Ellie adds sticks to her survival shelter

Chris works on his shelter

Kate adds leaves to insulate her shelter

Gwen adds leaves to help insulate her shelter

Saige adds birch bark to make her shelter more water resistant

Chris stands next to his completed survival shelter

Kai, Colin, and Ella sit inside their shelter

Sune and Maia pose in their survival shelter

Shawn, Olivia, and Katie pose in their shelter

Gwen, Kate, and Ellie sit in their shelter as Field Instructor Rob pours water over the top

About these ads