A Hands-On Learning Experience for Educators
In survival scenarios, you’re rarely alone, and this creates both unique challenges and valuable opportunities for growth. Join us for an immersive team-building experience where you’ll collaborate to create a shelter using only the natural resources provided (a perfect way to bring your local curriculum to life!). This challenge will spark your creativity, deepen your collaboration, and add a fun, slightly competitive edge!
Protection is a top priority in wilderness survival, but it’s not as simple as it sounds. While people are naturally inclined to work together, identifying your role within a team dynamic can be tricky. In this experience, you’ll discover how to leverage everyone’s strengths, navigate differences, and find common ground to achieve your goals—skills that are just as valuable in the classroom. The key competencies of Managing Self, Relating to Others, and Participating and Contributing will be at the forefront of this experiential learning activity.
This experience will not only help you build practical survival skills, but will also strengthen your resilience, communication, and problem-solving abilities as kaiako — skills that are essential for supporting your ākonga in developing their own teamwork and resilience, both in and out of the classroom.
As you reflect on how to work together effectively, you’ll gain strategies to help your students:
- Enhance their ability to collaborate and work with others
- Notice, recognize, and respond to the diverse needs and learning styles of ākonga
- Foster whanaungatanga—the building and maintaining of meaningful relationships that create a sense of belonging, shared responsibility, and support within the learning community.
By the end of this experience, you’ll walk away with practical skills and valuable insights you can immediately apply to your teaching practice, helping your students not only survive, but thrive, both in school and in life.
