In Vershire, Orienteering Course Teaches Students to Find Their Way

Vershire — One clue begins: “Not far from where the trail goes from wide to thin, here is where your next clue lies within. Pay attention, for this clue is quite tricky, you’ll need to find a large stand of trees that make something sweet and sticky.” With that information, the Samuel Morey Elementary School fifth-graders decided to check to another location on Patterson Mountain, a 2,292-foot peak in Vershire.

It was all part of an exercise earlier this month in which the fifth-graders, with help from 11th-graders from The Mountain School, competed in an orienteering course. Using maps and compasses, the fifth-graders were split into groups of four or five led by a Mountain School student and adult chaperones, who checked in along the way.

“A lot of them were unfamiliar with orienteering,” said Samuel Morey physical education teacher Ryan Labella. Learning how to use a compass “was a new instrument for them.”

The clues were scattered along a mile of trail. Maggie Stoudnour, Rivendell trails school program coordinator, put together the clues and treasure boxes along with Mountain School math and environmental science teacher Kathy Hooke. “I try to find some interesting features,” she said, such as a large fallen tree, “something that will catch their eye.” She billed the adventure as a cross between the dystopian novel series The Hunger Games and the TV show The Amazing Race. “Mostly it was just a way to make it seem fun and attractive to the kids,” she said.

At each station, the students had to plot the longitude and latitude of the box to which the clues, the map and their compass led them.

“I think they enjoyed the challenge of being able to find their bearings in the woods,” Labella said, adding that the kids experienced “a great, great amount of enjoyment when they found the box that they were looking for.”

Both the younger and older students benefited educationally from the activity, which most teams completed in a little over two hours. “The Mountain School students loved the activity and had fun connecting with the fifth-graders and teaching some of the skills they’ve learned during their time in Vershire,” Hooke wrote in an email.

At the end of the day, the students ate lunch together. “Another great part was being able to collaborate with students that were older than them and from another school,” Labella said. “Having the two schools together was just very special.”

James M. Patterson can be reached at jpatterson@vnews.com. Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com.