Remember the more you put into something the more you get out of it…

The Skills Share is a big part of the weekend, apart from having fun, it’s what the event is all about. Everyone is asked to prepare a lesson on some aspect of survival.

Don’t worry that you’re not a professional, or an expert, most of us aren’t. What matters is that you’ve taken the time to think, research, and prepare a short lesson for the rest of us to learn something from.

Make your lesson serious, funny, engaging, tongue-in-cheek, exciting, playful, interactive, perhaps make a competition or game out of the skill you’ve taught us?

There is a whole world of knowledge out there waiting to be shared, a quick look on the internet or in the library for inspiration on what to teach, 30minutes of research, and 30mins of planning, and you’ve got yourself a 5-20 minute lesson.

Don’t worry if someone at a previous ZSW has done the same lesson you wanted to do, revision and someone else’s perspective is always good practice. Your lesson might be more fun or interesting than theirs was!

Your lesson can be on absolutely anything Survival/apocalypse/zombie related, though its best to try to focus on the survival aspect of the event at this point.

The detail, quality and focus of the skills shares so far at ZSW’s has been very varied, Some people had serious and valuable lessons that could really save your life in a ‘life or death’ situation, such as emergency first aid, edible landscape and fire lighting practices. Others have gone for a more humorous and Tongue-in-cheek lesson such as; What to do in case of Bear attack, Semaphore-cheerleading etc.

If you Google ‘Survival Skills’ then you’ll come up with hundreds of other things that have yet to be covered. Perhaps you’ve been taught some handy bush-craft skill that you can adapt into a lesson to help pass on the knowledge.

Together we can learn to survive so when the shit hits the fan, we are collectively at least a little more prepared

Water; finding and maintaining drinking water.
Fire; methods of lighting and safety.
Foods; Plants, Seaweeds, Shellfish, Fish, Birds. (practical optional).
Camp Craft; Shelter, Cooking, camp hygiene,
First Aid; A brief look at first aid relevant to the situation.
Other subjects that may be covered include; Knots and Ropes, Maps/Orienteering/direction finding, Signalling for rescue (sound and sight), Preserving food and Tools, Knife care, and any other skills people feel they can share will be welcome.

Making your lesson Interesting

I highly recommend making a game, competition or challenge in your lesson as it keeps your audience engaged and interested and means you have to do less work as they are doing it for you.

By adding a game, you can easily turn a boring 5-minute lecture into a 20-minute exciting, fun, competitive, experience!

Here is an example of how to break down your lesson:

Introduction to subject.
History/Explanation/Alternatives/Risks Etc..
Practical demonstration by you.
Interactive challenge/game for audience participation.
Questions.

Resources

Think about what resources you will need, everyone should have a basic survival kit, and a pen and paper with them, what do you need to provide if anything?

The last lesson I did was map reading, so I had to provide the two teams with a map each. I forgot that I needed to demonstrate the correct way to read co-ordinates, fortunately we were on the beach so I could draw examples in the sand. Its a good idea to run through your lesson before you have to do it live to make sure it works properly.

Some Lessons that have been covered at past events to give you some idea of what we’re looking at: