Meet a tree | Activities

You’ll need

Blindfolds or neckers
Access to outdoor space

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.

Planing this activity

Make sure the outdoor area you visit is accessible for everyone, choosing a suitable place for drop off and collection. You may need to think about avoiding steps or steep gradients or including frequent breaks.
Check the forecast and sunset times, but be prepared for the weather to change. It’s best to run this activity on lighter evenings, such as in summer.
Make sure everyone knows where and when to meet, knows what to bring, and comes dressed for the weather and the task. People should wear outdoor clothing and sturdy shoes.
It might be a good idea to have some spare equipment, such as gardening gloves, for those who’d prefer not to get their hands too dirty. Make sure there’s somewhere everyone can wash their hands after the activity too.
Find an area that has a variety of trees. Make sure that there are enough trees for each pair or group, and where possible try and make sure there is a good variety of trees.
Mark out a clear boundary for the activity, including a starting location.

Tree hugger

Gather everyone together and explain you’re going to use your senses to learn about trees.
Ask everyone to get into pairs or small groups. One person in each pair or group should put on a blindfold, such as a necker. They could also just close their eyes.
From a set starting location, team members must guide their blindfolded teammate safely to a tree. Make sure everyone wearing a blindfold walks slowly, with their hands out in front of them.
The blindfolded person should use their other senses to get to know their tree: hug it, smell it, feel for knots or branches, and listen to the leaves rustling.
After a few minutes, their partner should carefully guide the blindfolded people back to the starting location.
Everyone should remove their blindfolds and try to locate the tree they went to, using what they learned about it.
After successfully finding their tree, or after three wrong guesses, the teammates should swap around.
Keep going by blindfolding another team member and choosing a different tree.

Reflection

This activity was about valuing the outdoors and being active. In this activity you got out into nature and used your senses to learn new things. We rely heavily on our eyes to take in the world around us, but there are lots of things we notice when we use our other senses. When you touched the tree, what textures did you feel? Were there any senses you didn’t use? Everyone tried to find their tree once the blindfold was taken off. How did you do it? You also had to trust your partner when you were blindfolded. How did it feel?

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.
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.
Contact games and activities: Make sure everyone understands what contact is acceptable, and monitor contact throughout the activity.