This resource has been developed to help teachers and leaders support young people to explore and
understand their rights and responsibilities in the outdoors and apply them to their daily lives.
It provides activity ideas that are designed to be fun and thought provoking and add value to a
number of curricular areas and cross curricular themes of the Curriculum for Excellence, including
Learning Outdoors and Citizenship.
What is this Activity Guide about?
This Guide is about adding value to outdoor learning and citizenship activities by raising awareness of
rights and responsibilities in the outdoors and empowering young people to make responsible choices.
The Scottish Outdoor Access Code is relevant to everyone in Scotland, wherever they live. If young
people have an understanding of their rights and responsibilities under the Code, they will be more
able to enjoy Scotland’s outdoors – responsibly!
Who is it for?
The activities can be used by anyone working with young people, including teachers, leaders of
uniformed groups, rangers and outdoor educators. They will be especially useful in preparing for an
outdoor learning session, programme or event, by helping young people to explore and understand
their rights and responsibilities in the outdoors and apply them to their daily lives. The activities have
been designed to be thought provoking and encourage debate.
This resource is best suited for use with children aged 12–14 years. There is also resource available
for use with 8–12 year olds.
Why use it?
This Guide can help you add value to outdoor learning activities with young people. The activities
it contains will help you to consider citizenship issues in a context that is real and relevant to
young people.
For teachers, the activities can help your pupils to develop all four capacities of the Curriculum for
Excellence. It is particularly relevant to cross-curricular themes such as Education for Citizenship and
Learning Outdoors and some activities could be carried out as part of Social Studies or Expressive
Arts. Page 6 considers the links with the Curriculum for Excellence a little further.