About 80 Year 9 students from Orange High School took part in an orienteering exercise recently at Gosling Creek and the adjacent Hinton Reserve.
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The orienteering activity was part of their PDHPE (Personal Development Health and Physical Education) curriculum.
The activity was organised by some members of the local Goldseekers Orienteering Club, following a request from Rebecca Ford, a teacher at Orange High School.
The students had been organised by Rebecca into three groups for the day’s activity, with each group spending one-and-a-half hours in each of the three activities, compass directions, using grid references and orienteering.
As none of the students had orienteered before they had a simple practice course, involving map reading and finding 4 or 5 control sites.
Following this they were individually challenged with a 3.4 km course of 16 controls. The controls were either on mapped features in an open area or on tracks through the reserves.
To complete these courses the students needed to orientate their maps, read the mapped features and navigate routes to their controls.
Often there were several route choices requiring decision making skills. All the students enjoyed the physical and mental challenge with nearly 35 per cent of the students completing the course in less than 50 minutes.
The fastest students were Maddi Owens in a time of 30:21 and Tanui Pakinga, 30:46.
Other students recording under 35 minutes were Hugh Middleton 32:27, Tyler McCarthy and Jimmy Wilkins 32:48, Jaden Campbell 33:57, Jalen Mansel 34:52 and Ethan Goransson 34:58.
Congratulations to the Orange High School staff on their initiative in introducing this activity into the curriculum and the students who participated in this exercise on their achievements and positive attitudes.
