School Camps themed on the Hunger Games

Overview: We offer these school camps for children of all ages. The programme follows the popular and well loved model we have run with teenagers and children over the last few years. Residential camps can vary in length but are usually between 3-5 days. We can also do one day event tasters .

Bringing your school on a Hunger Games themed camp is the ideal way to engage and enthuse young people with the outdoors, give them confidence to discover it for themselves, and to empower them with new skills and leadership qualities, develop teamwork; but most of all to deliver a hugely enjoyable experience to all.

Intention behind school camps: With the average British teen spending 37 hours looking at screens and only one in ten playing in wild places anymore, it is clear that many of our children are suffering from what Richard Louv coined 'Nature Deficit Disorder'.

However it's also clear through the evidence of research that the benefits to children that are exposed to nature is overwhelming. They score higher in almost every category, whether concentration and reasoning, or reading and writing, whilst consistently showing general overall behavioural improvement, as well as responsibility, better attitude and leadership.

But how to entice teenagers into the great outdoors? After all we are up against a vast marketing machine fluent in keeping kids indoors with video games, facebook , countless television channels and an infinite choice of distractions.

Our latest idea is to meet teenagers where they are at and run camps based and inspired entirely on the trilogy of books and films the Hunger Games, which is, in case you don't know, popular amongst teenagers to say the least. This is a chance to give the teens an authentic deep nature connective experience

Outcomes - The programme on this camp require the children to respond to a demanding (and enjoyable) sequence of tasks in an unfamiliar setting. The activities can cause breakthrough results in the following areas:

Attitude Organisation Integrity
Leadership Problem-solving Tenacity
Planning Teamwork Responsibility
Communication Observation Awareness
The likely outcomes from participating in such a dynamic interaction with the natural world are an increased enthusiasm, energy and motivation. Most importantly of all, the course is designed to give the children a really exciting and meaningful time together in nature!

Training Camp: Tributes will arrive to our 'Capitol', and spend the first two days camping together at the 'Training Camp' learning all the skills Katniss and Peeta used in the Arena. These include fire making, sneaking and stalking, shelter / den building, camouflage, edible plants, and nature awareness skills such as bird language (which Rue and Katniss knew) which Tributes will use to ambush eachother. They will also be winning sponsors hoping to get a parachute in the Arena.

Arena: On the morning of the third day, pairs of Tributes camo themselves up, enter the Arena and the Games begin. Grabbing a nerf gun and backpack from the 'Cornucopia' filled with all the essential survival stuff, such as some basic food, water bottle, something to help start a fire, and armed with their new trusty weapon of a nerf gun (with poster paint), they take off into the wildwood Arena. Seeking other Tributes to 'kill' off with their nerf guns by stalking, camouflaging, sneaking up on and ambushing them; they must also find food, water and make fires to become the Victor.
 

See this published article about the nature connection aspects of Hunger Games themed school camps

 Lead Instructor (Head Gamemaker): Robin Bowman has worked with teenagers in the outdoors for 16 years for a variety of schools, companies, organisations and charities. He loves the Hunger Games books and films and enjoys running the Games and Arena as Head Gamemaker, and the Mockingjay camp as President Snow. He is passionate about enagaging teenagers with the great outdoors and lives on a smallholding he runs with his young family and children on Dartmoor, making sausages and milking goats. He works alongside an experienced and professional team.