The philosophy of Daring Duck runs parallel to the purposes of the World Organization of the Scout Movement: to help youth obtain the skills for a successful and meaningful adulthood.
In adulthood, we function in communities. We work together, together we experience new things, and we support each other. Local scout groups resemble this working together that all of us face in later life.
If there is a local scouting group in your neighbourhood, then we therefore strongly advise you to become a member of that group. It is much more fun to do things together than alone and local scouting groups are one of the best places to enjoy facing and tackling challenges together.
Why then, did we start Daring Duck?
If there is already the worldwide scouting organisation; why did we start Daring Duck?
There are two reasons for that:
1) Reaching out to more teenagers.
During my 15 years in China, I noticed that most of the students finish their high school unprepared for an independent life. However, there is in an enormous interest from both teenagers and their parents in being able to do that. An interest in learning skills such as First Aid, Pioneering, Cooking, Navigation or Camping. All the standard scouting skills. There were just no places to obtain that knowledge.
In several other countries I saw a similar need to make kids more outgoing, and to make them more self-assured that they can solve problems that they face. Even teenagers themselves often have a keen interest to do other activities than gaming on their phone or than being on social media. But many of these teenagers do not have access to local scouting groups.
In 2011, Daring Duck was setup to run local scouting groups. Over the last 10 years, we found that it was exceedingly difficult to keep new scouting leaders proficient in the many skills that are required to give professional outdoor classes.
During the last 3 years we have therefore focused on the development of an Online Adventure system and of the Adventure Parks. The objective of each of them is to bring high quality scouting classes to existing scouting groups, to schools, and to individual teenagers who cannot attend traditional scouting groups.
2) Supporting local schools and scouting groups.
In discussions with scouting groups in multiple countries, we also discovered that there can be a big difference in the programs that each scouting group provides. Our Online Adventures are therefore packaged in weekly programs. Our weekly program approach enables schools to offer students a 3-year outdoor program during which students can obtain their badges.
With our program, we offer local scouting groups a system that not only helps teachers to remain proficient with their skills, but with which they can also register and monitor the progress of individual students.
Daring Duck’s Teaching Method
Our teaching method makes use of three components: the 360 degree videos to introduce youth to challenges, our phone APP to share activities with friends and monitor progress, and our Treasure Boxes that make sure that all members have the tools and equipment needed to perform all challenges.
> 360° videos*
When starting the Online Adventures, we focused on teenagers that have no access to scouting clubs or schools where they can obtain these skills. But we are also aware that watching a teacher online provides a very limited, possible even boring, experience.
We found our solution in 360° videos.
The 360° videos give viewers the feeling as if they are at a real scouting club.
In our 360° videos a teenager (or teacher) can look forward; seeing a scouting leader explaining the challenge and solution, or they can look to the right or left to see other kids of the same age performing that challenge.
* Due to Covid-19 restrictions, 360-degree videos with students will only be available later in 2022.
Since we consider ‘doing’ as the best way to learn, our videos are noticeably short (2 to 6 minutes) and each video presents a challenge. This then gives students enough time to practice and face the challenges themselves.
Scouting leaders and teachers can face the instructions in advance. Later they can then decide to either show their students the scouting leader on video, to show only other kids of the same age performing the challenge, or to not show the video at all and provide the instructions themselves.
> APP
Even though the videos are developed to enable members to follow the courses themselves, we do feel that being part of a community is extreme important for every teenager. For this reason, we developed a phone APP where kids can post the results of their challenges and give feedback to friends doing the same. Teachers can use the APP also to record the progress of the scouts in their group or school.
To become successful in life, is a community effort. Only by working together with others, we can realise our dreams. As many of us know, competition helps small groups to excel when facing other groups (we love the ingenuity teenagers show during competitions). But on a personal level, we find that individual scoring reduces cooperation between kids. For this reason, in our APP, teachers can provide individual comments on every challenge, but individual scoring is limited to passing or failing a challenge. We have seen that this approach, without more detailed grading, improves companionship rather than competition.
> Treasure Box
Because many scouting activities require equipment, varying from ropes and bandages to compass and tents, a few times a year, members receive a Treasure Box that has the tools and equipment that they need for the upcoming season.
For schools and scouting clubs that follow Daring Duck’s program, there are the XL and XXL versions of the treasure box, where XL provides the tools and equipment for 12 kids + 1 teacher, and XXL for 24 kids and 2 teachers.
Do you want to become a Daring Duck member?
Or do you want to know how your school or scouting club
can benefit from Daring Duck?
Register here and we will be in touch.