After another busy week of classes and activities, students and staff headed to Mok Fah Waterfall, part of the Doi Suthep-Pui National Park for a weekend retreat.

There was plenty of time for students to get to know each other and staff in a laid-back setting, but the weekend also provided ample learning time in a setting outside of the classroom–something students will become accustomed to during their time as students at ISDSI.

We kicked off the weekend with a swim assessment at the Huay Tong Tao Reservoir on the edge of the city. After the swim and a delicious lunch, it was off to Mok Fah. The students were excited to arrive and have a little rest time before delving into activities. With a mixture of  group discussions and hands on activities, students covered everything from leadership and working styles to risk management and decision-making to basic first aid and healthcare in Thailand and out in the field.

After learning or re-learning some basic first-aid, students had the opportunity to “rescue” one of their fellow classmates, who acted as the patient (including some very convincing actors). Don’t worry, no students were harmed in the creation of the scenario!

Throughout the “rescue,” students had the opportunity to learn what it feels like to work with a group in a stressful situation and were impressively composed and communicative. Not only did they have to work with a group in challenging circumstances, but also realized first-hand the challenges and exhausting nature of a wilderness rescue and evacuation.

Instuctors, Pi Pui and Pi Rashauna, wait in the kayaks for the first group of swimmers.

Mark is excited to start his swim assessment.

Monika prepared to conquer the swim assessment.

Pi Am goes over the Mok Fah policies with all of the students before they settle into their cabins.

A veiw of the Mok Fah Waterfall.

Pi Pui leads the students in some morning yoga.

Pi Toto, Pi Am, Pi Tik, and Pi Bo prepare some delicious Thai food for more than 40 people.

The result of the hard work in the kitchen. It tasted as delicious as it looks!

A group of students works on their "patient" during the rescue scenario.

Peter displays his beautiful self-portrait for the final activity of the weekend.

Students write comments about each other for the final, wrap-up activity of the weekend.

A core part of an ISDSI semester is learning about leadership and judgment.  We use hands-on training as well as the NOLS Leadership Skills to help students develop as competent and capable leaders.

Each semesters starts off with a retreat on the second weekend at the Mok Fa Waterfall, part of the Doi Suthep – Doi Pui National Park.  The weekend is a great time for students and instructors to get to know each other, enjoy some time out in nature, and relax.

Mok Fa Waterfall.

We also use the weekend to begin the process of training students in risk management and judgment.  Like any activity, studying on one’s home campus carries with it a set of risks and hazards. Learning and studying abroad has inherent risks associated with it as well, but the risks are different and students don’t have the “street smarts” they would in their home cultures. Because of that we do a number of things during the program, from training sessions to leader-of-the-day, to help students build their ability to make good decisions and lead in a challenging and different environment than their home cultures.

As a part of the weekend, we have modified a leadership tool used by Outward Bound (USA) that they use to train their instructors.  We first learned about how to do this at a workshop “When Judgment Is Crucial: Outward Bound USA’s Instructor Judgment Training” at the Wilderness Risk Management Conference. The basic idea is simple — take a realistic scenario, and then work a group through the options and consequences of decisions.

We start the training session with a discussion of some basic principles of understanding risk, accidents, and how to pull apart a decision to understand its consequences.

Risk, accidents and decision making.

Using these tools allow students to work through the scenario and begin applying a more sophisticated understanding of risk other than a “safe/unsafe” dichotomy.

Notes -- students often end up referring back to these throughout the semester when they are in the position of being leaders-of-the-day.

The students break into groups, and we introduce the scenario — a group of students backpacking through the mountains in Northern Thailand from village to village. This involves understanding objectives hazards of weather and jungle travel, as well as cultural concerns and group dynamics.

Talking over options.

The scenario is very close to the actual Expedition Field Courses they will experience, and is modeled to reflect some of the actual places and people they will meet during the Forests course.

At each point in the scenario where a decision needs to be made, the groups work through what they would do, and then share their decision with the larger group.

Matt sharing his group's thinking on their course of action.

Each group comes up with different solutions to the same set of problems.  Do you stop your group on the trail?  Turn back to the village?

Karen explaining their decision and possible consequences.

The real-life decision modeling is a very powerful way to get students to understand that their decisions have consequences. It is impossible to eliminate all risk and hazards — but it is possible to manage those in a responsible way.

A key thing we learned ourselves on our Wilderness First Responder course.

After the scenario we debrief and reflect on what students have learned — what was surprising, what take away points they want to remember, and how to apply it.

The next day during the retreat we spend the morning putting this into action — first with a “Threats To Life” class on what to do in case of an emergency where someone has gotten hurt, and then with an accident scenario where they work in teams to carry a “patient” out of the jungle with an improvised litter. Aside from being a lot of fun, it brings home how decisions have consequences, and how to be thoughtful and aware in a new culture, environment, and learning context.

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For more on our approach, see “The Objective Hazards of Culture” online (as a PDF), as well as other papers on our Publications page.

Also see our Wilderness First Responder page, with explains a bit about our approach and the training required for ISDSI instructors.

Just finished our ISDSI Retreat with students and staff up at Mok Faa waterfall, part of the Doi Pui/Doi Suthep National Park.  This semester we focused on really minimizing the activities during the retreat to allow lots of free time, time to go swim in the waterfall, take a nap, and just get to know each other.  We did a couple of sessions on risk and responsibility, how to respond to an emergency in the field, and how to develop good judgment–activities designed to be fun, interactive, working as teams, and learning some good lessons that will be useful later.

The waterfall at Mok Faa is cool and flows year-round.  We’ll see if it manages to do it this year.

Dry fields north of Chiang Mai.

Hot season is starting early.  Usually it isn’t until March that the weather is this hot, but it started a couple of weeks ago.  We’ve still got cool nights, but the days are getting hot.  The dry weather is allowing people to burn leaves, grass, and whatever it is they want to. While bad air quality is usually blamed on “tribal people” (like most things), from what we can see it is mostly urban burning and burning in the lowland fields as they prepare to plant their dry season crop of soy or garlic.  Dust from construction of roads (and ever popular activity) also is a big factor.

Every year there is a point where you can’t see the mountains around Chiang Mai, and last week you couldn’t see them.  This week seems a bit better, but it is still getting bad.  There is a lot of talk that it is dryer than last year, and there are concerns about forest fires. We’re also wondering how low the Yom river will be this year when we paddle it.  Usually it never goes dry in the section we paddle, but there are often low parts where we have to do some hauling of the boats.

We’ll know soon enough.