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Navigation
What's it all about
Navigation is all about knowing where you are, and then knowing how to get somewhere else without getting lost. There are all sorts of ways of doing this whether by day or by night, and most of them involve being observant. Before you read through this page, you might be wise to check the Navigation page in the Beaver Section to save stuff being repeated.
By now, you will have learned the names of the Roads and landmarks around your home, and to and from school. Now find a local map, and learn the names of the towns and villages around where you live, and get to know which roads lead to them and the direction in which they lie.
Navigation is about being able to tell others the way, as well as get to places yourself, so learn your left and right, and be able to recognise useful distances so that you can tell others how to get to places that you know. Very long Cub strides are about a metre, so find two telegraph poles, or lamp posts, and find out how far they are apart, and then you can use that distance to help you estimate how far things are away - this needs practice over various distances, but you can get quite good at it in time.
In Scouting, we also learn to read maps, and the first thing that we must do is be able to recognise the points of the compass. There is a compass above, and on it are marked what we call the cardinal points and the important ones in between.
They are:
North - at the top
South - at the bottom
West - on the left
East - on the right, and that should help you remember your left and right.
Above is an Ordinance Survey map, scale 1:50,000. These are the most common maps used to help us get around, and when you open it out, you will find that North is traditionally at the top of the map. On the map you will easily spot roads and other features. At the bottom of the map, or at the side in some cases, you will find a section that tells you what all the little symbols on the map mean, and as you progress through scouting, you will learn what all these are, and they will help you to recognise where you are.
On the map of Church Stretton, see if you can spot a Church with a tower, a Car Park, a View point, a railway cutting, and a phone box.
An important feature on these maps are contour lines which show relief. Contour lines are lines drawn by the map makers which represent a line of height above sea level, and they are spaced at 10 metres apart vertically. If you can see the hill at the centre right of the map called Hope Bowdler, you will see that these lines are very close together. This means that the hill has very steep sides, while in the valleys they are much further apart and shows that the ground is much more level.
Navigating at night
We also have to be able to find our way at night, and on a clear night we can see lots of stars. An important star to be able to find is a star called Pollaris, or the North Star as it is better known as. Below you will see a night sky showing the North Star. Go out at night and see if you can spot it.
As viewed looking North. As the Earth turns on its axis the Plough turns round the pole star so at different times and seasons it will be in a different place, but the Pole Star will always be in the same place.
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