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Acknowledgments

Authors and Contributors​

Navigation Games staff, including Barb Bryant and Ethan Childs, wrote the orienteering content of these lessons. Kieran Woods made huge contributions to the camp progression. Evalin Brautigam has been a key contributor across multiple phases of the curriculum. School teachers Katelyn Greene and Thomas Materazzo added the SHAPE America standards and feedback on an earlier version of these lesson plans. Artist Marina Carlson designed the animal pictures used in Animal-O and related activities. Liz McNerney, Maija Pratt, and Sheri Steinberg contributed to the one-page activity summaries. Many PE teachers have provided input that shaped the curriculum.

Marius Okshalen provided project management for curriculum development in 2025-2026, with writing and editing by Kieran Woods, Maija Pratt, Mikayla Moss, Erkan Sezgin, and Liz McNerney.

The orienteering lessons are based on curricula developed by Navigation Games from 2015 to 2019 with the Cambridge Community Schools JK-5 after-school classes (led by Barb Bryant, Ethan Childs and Adam Miller), and with JK-5 Physical Education classes at Cambridge Public Schools in the spring of 2018 (led by Melanie Serguiev), and the school years 2019-2020 and 2020-2021. Cambridge Public Navigation Game staff Cristina Luis, Charlotte Marshall and Adam Miller were additional authors, with feedback from Anaka Landrigan and Conor Latimer-Ireland. Previous versions have been presented at MAHPERD and other conferences.

Cambridge Public School teachers Linda Fobes and Julia Bishop advised Navigation Games on lesson plan development and welcomed us into their classrooms.

Navigation Games teachers who contributed to the lessons and approach include Evalin Brautigam, Marie Berzinova, Tomas Kamaryt, Keegan Harkavy, David Landrigan, Priya Landrigan, Juan de Oliveira, Pavla Zdrahalova de Oliveira, Juan Manuel Merida Sanchis, Violeta Feliciano, Eugenio Trevisio, Geoff Pingree, Anaka Landrigan, Jason Tong, Sarah Gregorio, Mike Porter, Anna Swan, and Anna Lenihan.

Summer Staff and Interns​

In the summers, interns and high school students (most from the Cambridge, MA, Mayor's Summer Youth Employment Program) taught Navigation Games classes at summer camps. Kristin Hall and Julia Bishop helped those students develop lesson plans for the summer programs. Summer staff included Ethan Childs, Isak Prellner, Evalin Brautigam, Adam Miller, Melanie Sergiev, Maiken Sandberg, and Marina Carlson. Interns and students included Aidan O'Keefe, Chanpera Toeumhernandez, Colin Harmer, Connor Bresnahan, Ellen Jacobson, Emie Gerard, Ethan Hall, Ethan Rothenberg, Gabriel Nielsen-Nunez, Hersh Kanner, Jackson Codd, Jeffrey Chen, Julia Armand, Keegan Harkavy, Lincoln Craven-Brightman, Lucas Oliveira-Chace, Maggie Bayly, Nathaniel Saintfort, Peter Cannistaro, Peter Phan, Phineas DeSola, Sarah Hughes, Sam Peck, Shanti Soderstrom, Shayne Thorpe, Sophia Price, Theo Boehm, Vincent Chen, Walter Ditrani, Yasser Elfathy, and Zoe McNerney.

Inspiration and Sources​

Orienteering Program Delivery Scripts by Erkan Sezgin and Mikayla Moss. Detailed scripts for teaching each activity and lesson, written for Navigation Games instructors. (Not publicly available; for NG staff editing the curriculum.)

Andrea Schneider of Orienteering USA and David Yee of Navigation Games observed and reported to us the use of Animal Orienteering at a European orienteering event.

External Sources​

Erin Schirm (Orienteering USA coach) developed and shared with us orienteering lesson plans for middle school. The boundary run and game, as well as the gathering in response to a signal, were based on his first lesson plan. Erin's approach of using games and emphasizing communication has been an inspiration.

Orienteering USA (OUSA) for the Orienteering Development Model (based on the TeamUSA American Development Model) and the Skill Level Recognition Program, which informed our developmental stages and skill progression.

Discovering Orienteering: Skills, Techniques and Activities by Charles Ferguson and Robert Turbyfill.

Orienteering and Map Games for Teachers by Mary E. Garrett.

Start Orienteering, a series of books aimed at different ages, by Carol McNeill and Tom Renfrew, published by Harvey.

Lesson Plans from the Orienteering Service of Australia.

SHAPE America for the National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education, used in our PE standards alignment.

A Note on AI​

The orienteering concepts, activities, and teaching approach in this curriculum come from years of teaching and collaboration with educators.

We used AI tools, primarily Claude (Anthropic) to edit for consistency and clarity, to organize years of scattered materials into a coherent site, to build the tools that run it, and to turn a decade of teaching experience into something other educators can pick up and use. As a small nonprofit, we are grateful for what became possible.

We offer a Lesson Plan Advisor to help you teach this material. If you would rather minimize your AI footprint, you can skip the advisor entirely. Go straight to the documented lesson plan progressions. Navigation Games staff are happy to consult with you.