I teach many different aspects of bushcraft skills, mainly older scouts and explorer groups. I was recently approached by a beaver and cub group in locally to help them with some tracking skills. Well after several chats with the leaders it became apparrent after carrying out a risk assesment that they we unhappy to take these younger kids into the forest. So, rather than call it off I put plan B into action!
I went down to are local DIY store and purchased some rolls of embossed wallpaper and laid them out on the scout hall floor. I then jumped in some mud and proceeded to lay a trail around the hall floor leaving other clues on the way, ie crisps, sweet wrappers, ketchup to simulate an injury etc. as I walked further around the room and the prints got harder to see, we started them using a tracking stick to find where the next print should be. We then switched off the lights so that we could simulate tracking at night using green and blue torches mounted on the tracking sticks.
Whilst it wasn't ideal it was a pretty good second best, and the kids loved it. There was no risk and they still had access to there home comforts.
I thought I would post this because whilst I prefer to do all my tracking outdoors this seemed to be a good way to introduce children to tracking, I also thought that if other leaders have encounterd the same problems this solution may help them.
Nick
PS Next time I may buy a cheap roll of blue wallpaper to simulate a stream or river!
