Make a journey stick

You’ll need

Elastic bands
A large stick
Weather appropriate clothing
Twine
Materials collected on your walk, such as leaves
Spotter sheets

Before you begin

Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. There's also more guidance to help you carry out your risk assessment, including examples.
Make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help if you’re short on helpers.

Planning and setting up this activity

You can run this either as a stand-alone activity or as part of a walk, expedition, or adventure day.
Choose an appropriate, accessible outdoor area. You may need to think about avoiding steps, being close to public transport, or steep gradients or including frequent breaks.
Make sure parents and carers know exactly where you’ll be, what people may need to bring, the day, the location, and when and where to drop off and collect everyone.
Have a suitable, well-lit place for drop off and collection, away from any traffic.
Check the weather forecast. Make sure everyone knows to come dressed for the weather and activity, being prepared for the weather to change.
Check the sunset times, making sure that you’ll have sufficient light throughout the activity. It’s best to run this activity on lighter evenings, such as in summer.
If you’re in a public space, young people should be paired up, so no young person is left alone. Each pair should move around together.
Always have an adult at the front, middle and back of the walk, and do regular headcounts.
You could use resources to help people identify wildlife. There’s the Seek app from iNaturalist, which uses the camera on your device to help you identify plants, animals and trees. Or, for trees, there’s the Woodland Trust Tree ID app. These apps are designed to be family-friendly and can be used without registering or setting up an account.

Make your journey stick

Gather everyone together and ask people what they think they may see or find on their walk. Give out any spotting sheets you have to people.
Explain to everyone that you’re going to make a journey stick. You’ll carry a stick on the walk, then every time you see something interesting you can attach it to the stick using twine or elastic bands. At the end, you’ll have a memory of everything you saw!
Before your walk, give everyone a safety briefing. You may want to ask people to stay in pairs, explain what to do if they need help or in an emergency, tell people the route or boundaries, what to do if they hear the whistle, what not to touch in nature, and anything else they may need to know. Explain the signal to stop and how long the activity will go on for. A long blast on a whistle works well as a signal to stop the activity.
Give everyone some twine and elastic bands. You could also give people paper and coloured pens or pencils so they can draw things they see.
Before the walk, or at the start, everyone should try to find a big stick to walk with. They can then wrap the twine or elastic bands on it.
Start walking and every so often stop in a good resting place. An adult should always remain here as a base. It could be a picnic area or another dry and shaded space.
At each resting place, explore nearby and gather some natural materials from the ground such as leaves, mud, sticks and twigs, petals, or feathers. They should only collect things that have fallen to the ground – no one should pick or pull anything from living plants.
Once they’ve gathered their materials, everyone should return to the resting place. Using the twine and elastic bands, attach the items you’ve found to the stick.
Once everyone’s happy with their creations, everyone should continue on the walk. After about 10 minutes or so, they should stop again and continue adding to their art. People can also pick things up along the walk as you go.
At the end of the walk, everyone should gather together and share their journey stick. What did they see along the way?
Before they go, people should choose whether to keep their creation. If they don’t want to, they should remove the natural materials and place them back into nature. Make sure not to leave any elastic bands behind.

Reflection

This activity was a chance to enjoy being outside and to get connected to the natural environment. Did anyone come across any plants or animals that they’d never seen before? If anyone did, can they describe them to the rest of the group? Anyone else who knows about the plant or animal should share some facts. Everyone made journey sticks from natural materials – why was it important to gather them from the ground, rather than plucking or pulling from living things?

This activity was also a chance to be active. Why was it important that everyone wore clothes that were suitable for the walk (and weather appropriate, too)? How else can people avoid injuries when they’re being active? People’s answers could include warming up or taking breaks to rest and rehydrate.

Safety

All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.

Outdoor activities: You must have permission to use the location. Always check the weather forecast, and inform parents and carers of any change in venue.
Gardening and nature: Everyone must wash their hands after the activity has finished. Wear gloves if needed. Explain how to safely use equipment and set clear boundaries so everyone knows what’s allowed.
Hiking and walking: Follow the guidance for activities in Terrain Zero, or the guidance for each the adventurous activity.
Poles and long objects: Be careful when moving poles or long items. Take care if the ends are sharp. Have appropriate supervision for this activity.
Animals and insects: Be aware of the risks before interacting with animals. Be aware of anyone with allergies, and make alternative arrangements for them.
Visits away from your meeting place: Complete a thorough risk assessment and include hazards, such as roads, woodland, plants, animals, and bodies of water (for example, rivers, ponds, lakes, and seas). You’ll probably need more adult helpers than usual. Your risk assessment should include how many adults you need. The young people to adult ratios are a minimum requirement. When you do your risk assessment, you might decide that you need more adults than the ratio specifies. Think about extra equipment that you may need to take with you, such as high visibility clothing, a first aid kit, water, and waterproofs. Throughout the activity, watch out for changes in the weather and do regular headcounts.