Activity: Outdoor Survival Skills

Could you survive outdoors without the conveniences of home? Learn basic outdoor survival skills so you can be prepared for possible emergencies.

As a group, learn and practice basic survival skills. For example, invite an expert to teach you about edible plants in your area, how to build a makeshift shelter, how to build a fire, how to find your way if you’re lost, how to signal for help, how to find and purify water, or how to maintain a positive mental attitude.

Please adapt activities as necessary to ensure all individuals are able to participate, belong, and contribute.

• Have each group member bring a shoebox (or other similarly sized container). Together with an expert, discuss what cost-effective, easily obtainable items they could fit into the shoebox to make a short-term survival kit. Then, as a group, assemble the kits and take them home.
• Invite an expert to talk about the potential natural disasters that could happen in your area and what resources and planning would be important to help them deal with such a scenario. What should youth do if they have to evacuate their home in the aftermath of a natural disaster? Talk about different potential scenarios and what the youth could do for themselves and others. Point out that surviving in an urban or suburban setting poses a unique set of challenges. If that’s more applicable to your area, have the expert discuss with the group how to survive in a more populated setting. What happens in an urban setting during a prolonged power outage?
• For more experienced groups, invite youth to see who can build a survival camp the fastest using natural resources in the area for food, water, shelter, and fire (where possible). You might consider giving awards for best shelter or best meal.

Encourage youth to talk about how what they are learning can help them and others grow closer to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Discussions can take place before, during, or after the activity and should last just a few minutes. You could ask questions like the following:

• How can learning survival skills benefit you and your family?
• What are some similarities between physical survival and spiritual survival?

• “Work and Self-Reliance,” For the Strength of Youth (booklet, 2011), 40–41

• Protecting and Preserving the Environment
• Go on a Hike
• Exploring Plant and Animal Life