Aaron Hunt wrote: > > I would like to second this. [Including more weather content in ACA/BCU > training.] As a former Marine with eight years in Intelligence the > weather was always the number one thing on everyone's mind. Whether > talking to a bunch of grunts in the field or the commander of an entire > regiment, the weather was the first thing that we briefed. [snip] > As I mentioned some time back, few kayaking courses cover weather > awareness in much detail (based on my own experience and my survey on > the topic) . > No doubt there will be some content in the ACA course on weather but the > list Ray gave us suggests its importance (not much) to the course. No > doubt accident prevention lacks the glamour of rolling, expeditions, > surf and traditional skills but it seems to me to that bland old keeping > out of trouble should be a major topic. [snip] Learning how to stay out of bad weather isn't sexy, and does not make for attractive videos. That said, I would not lean on ACA or BCU too hard. I suspect words to the wise and some practical instruction on procedures for accessing local forecasts would give seminar participants at least a "nuts and bolts" knowledge -- enough to get 'em thinking about weather and how to anticipate the envelope of possibilities the forecast suggests. And, it might be unreasonable to expect much more out of intensive ACA/BCU seminars. What I'm suggesting is that an understanding of weather patterns and developing the ability to "anticipate" possible changes in the weather is a slowly-acquired skill. This is the kind of stuff that demands a learning cycle approach: learn a little theory, go out and test it in the field, go back and learn a little more theory, back to the field (etc.). Lectures on weather are relatively ineffective in building field-worthy, useful weather competency. Maybe ACA/BCU should offer "weather seminars" as an adjunct to their more physical skills trainings -- the kind of thing a person could take several times until he/she gets it. Anecdotal support for this: as a grad student, I was the notetaker for Frank Badgley (sp?), the lecturer for an introductory atmospheric sciences course at the U Washington (late '60's). This thing was devoted mainly to non-science types. Frank introduced EVERY session with a 5-minute review of the most recent weather map and a short discussion of what the fronts and jet stream were doing. Slowly (if they paid attention), his students acquired a sound understanding of basic weather principles, and probably retained it much better than if they had just read a book, or listened to a formal lecture on the subject. That's the approach which might work. You can't teach weather like you teach bracing or rolling. -- Dave Kruger Astoria, OR long-time teacher *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************Received on Sat Dec 12 1998 - 15:59:19 PST
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:30:02 PDT