haha definitely good advice there MDinana, here we really have to watch for snakes (copperheads and the occasional timber rattler) and black widow spiders are a possibility, so during the shelter session, we'll plan to talk a bit about site selection

the shelter session is one of my concern areas, esp the part where they have to build a natural shelter to spend the night in ... to reduce the environmental impact, i have already collected shelter poles from trees close to my home that were being cut down, the plan being to have them construct a debris hut type shelter like this, the main ridge pole and some smaller branches for the "ribs" are what I have already collected

I thought it would be easy to do, but am starting to wonder, it looks like there are some awfully big gaps between the "ribs" for the debris to just fall right through on their shelters, any suggestions or insight on this?