Thor, I agree very strongly that your daughter should not carry a knife. Some schools have adopted a 0% tolerance 0% common sense approach to the issue. Our local school started expulsion proceedings against a young boy(7) for having a small pen knife his grandfather had given him specifically for the outing (not being aware of the policy). Then they sent it to our office asking for prosecution! It took three separate meetings with the superintendant with both me and the chief of police arguing against disciplinary proceedings before they were finally dropped. Unbelievable. <br><br> Our daughter carries an "emergency" kit (rather than survival kit) something like mini's and willies, and I will be making some additions after seeing their advice. The one addition that I would make would be a cell phone. She is not allowed to give the number out, nor to use it for social calls, but simply to have it in her pack in case of true emergency.<br><br>Take care, <br><br><br><br>become evolved....the world is run by those who grow up