The Tangen Project was a week whereby the whole class went to a small Scout hut area in the woods called Paulen to deliver a week of outdoor activities to local Kristiansand schools. Each day a new group of 20-40 students would arrive in the evening. We would then deliver an evening session after the pupils had set up their camp and a morning session the following day. The larger group of pupils were split into smaller groups of students and would move from activity to activity in rotations. There were usually a couple of activities inactive during each rotation which gave us an opportunity to take a break or to repair any damage or make appropriate changes to out activity. There were 8 activities; Orienteering, slacklining, shelter building, fire building, river crossing, barefoot path walking, ‘night line’ and the jungle swing. The activities were very varied however they all had the core aim of improving teamwork and of course critical thinking.

Myself, Marijn and Scott were in charge of the orienteering. This involved a lot of setting up but required very little in the way of active leadership/participation. We laid out orienteering cards around the forest, each of which had symbols or letters on it. Some were easy to find and others harder. There were ten in total. We would then hand each group two laminated maps and give them 20 minutes find and record as many card as possible. There were a real range of results over the course of the week. Some scored as low as 1 and another as high as 9. We were obliged to consistently check that all the cards were still where they were meant to be however and we also had to roughly monitor the location of each group to check they didn’t stray too far and get lost.

Overall there were mixed responses to our activity however it was generally fair to say that very little explain needed to be given to the groups of how to use the equipment. Almost every single person was happy using a compass and map. This was interesting and really highlighted a massive cultural difference to my home country of the UK where a great deal longer would need to have been given to the groups in order to instruct them on how to navigate. It was refreshing to not have to teach the basics. Some groups were eager to go and wanted to get as many points as possible by finding all the cards. These groups would generally run straight off from out base and need very little motivating. Some groups needed a little push however and we had to give a little shout or chase them down to get them running out from out base. Some groups were also very successful in working together. These groups would usually be the ones who would spend 30 seconds or a minute discussing plan about splitting up prior to running off into the forest. They were also generally the ones who got the higher scores.We also each took turns delivering the activity explanation to the pupils. This was ideal so that we each got a chance to ‘run’ the activity however we all had experience doing this sort of thing before so it wasn’t that essential. Later on in the week Marijn introduced a bonus point whereby if the group could make us laugh then they had the chance to recoup losses or boost their score.

I would hope that this week benefited the pupils however it was impossible to see an impact when we only say each pupil. Once for a 30-minute session in a time period of less than 24 hours. That being said that’s not to say we didn’t make a difference, it was just difficult to measure. Our activity certainly ran smoothly and none of the groups had any complaints. It was also nice being able to sleep so close to where we were running activities and hammocking was comfortable however a little cold.