SAR Fundamentals/Compass practical and pacing

From PCSAR

Lesson plan:

Contents 1 Subject 2 Authors 3 Scope 4 Prerequisites 5 Objectives 6 Time Plan 7 Aids 8 Question bank 9 Frequently Asked Questions 10 Feedback 11 License 12 Reference Material 13 Notes

Subject

What is this lesson plan about?

This is a short 1-hour practical training on taking and following bearing with a compass and pacing distance, to be done outside in an open area.

A small student to instructor ratio (max 5:1) is recommended. As such, this lesson is often one station of several with a larger class broken up into smaller teams of max 5 students and this session is taught repeatedly by the same instructor as the teams move between stations. See "Search skills and compass practical" as a commonly used example of this lesson as one of several stations.

Authors

List who wrote this lesson plan.

Brett Wuth, Chris Jorgensen

Scope

What is included in this lesson, what's not and why.

SAR Fundamentals Manual: Ch.13 "Navigation"

Basic SAR Skills Manual: Ch.7 "Navigation"

• Navigation - section 3 - compass use and exercise

Prerequisites

What should students already know/have accomplished before the lesson is presented.

Prior to this lesson, students should have already been introduced to the following concepts:

1. the parts of a compass
2. how a compass works
3. how a compass fails
4. declination

See "Navigation instruments theory" for the lesson plan that provides these prerequisites.

Objectives

At the conclusion of this lesson the participants:

1. will be able to ...

• know cardinal directions
• know compass degrees
• know what affects a compass
• magnetic declination
• shooting a bearing with a compass
• pacing
• exercises:
  • bearings
  • pacing / bearing
• backbearing
• offsets

Time Plan

Total Time: 60 minutes

Time	Material
00:00 3 min	Introduce topic title Introduce Instructor Present Objectives
00:03	instructional points in normal font aids, exercises, activities in italic 1/ discuss Magnetic Declination Where needle points Reading declination from map (add grid N) North pole moves currently moving north about 40 km / year Magnetic declination for Pincher Creek, 2012: 14deg 38' E. according to http://geomag.nrcan.gc.ca/apps/mdcal-eng.php We track on our wiki: Navigation#Declination Adjusting declination on compass 2/ shooting a bearing with a compass using compass avoid metal belt buckle avoid magnetic fields holding compass hold flat sighting using mirror using sighting notches reading bearing rotating barrel "red to the bed" parallax problem parallel needle edge, not needle in the middle practice reading bearings to several objects vary distance and note differences in error walking a bearing setting bearing how far to look practice finding destinations at several bearings 3/ Pacing Step is one foot to the opposite Pace is one foot to the same foot (two steps) counting your pace measure your pace in 10m calculating distance from paces calculating paces from distance 4/ Exercises: bearings hand-out: Pacing and Traverse 5/ Advance As they come up in discussion, describe: back bearings offsets

Aids

What materials are needed or useful in presenting this lesson.

• Pacing and bearing exercise
• Tape measure
• Compasses
• compass rose
  • http://forum.oldweather.org/index.php?topic=1056.0
• SAR Fundamentals - Chapter 13 - Navigation

Question bank

List of questions suitable for an review/exam of this section.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are some of the questions that students typically ask. Include the answers.

Feedback

When has this lesson been presented. What was the feedback.

License

What can others do with this lesson?

Copyright © 2010, Chris Jorgensen. Copyright © 2010-2013, Brett Wuth. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 Canada License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/ca/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, California 94305, USA.

Reference Material

If you need to cite sources, do so here.

[1]

Notes

Any additional notes, etc.