The First of the Group Presentations

This week in class, we had the first four presentations for our group projects about a certain activity and adaptations of that activity. The first group did kayaking and boating and told us about certain adapted kayaks for people with disabilities and adaptations that can be made for a sail boat to make it safe and enjoyable for all kinds of populations. One thing I found interesting and learned from their presentation was that there are kayaks where the person can control the boat by blowing in a mouth piece. Certain amounts of air can make it go forward or turn. I never knew there were devices like that, much less a device that could control a kayak!

The second group presented on adaptive horseback riding and talked about all the different populations that can go horseback riding and all the benefits it has. Near the end, they talked about horse whispering which I have heard of, but never really knew the true meaning of I guess. Horse whispering is pretty much communicating with the horse and building a relationship between the horse and the rider. They talked about places to stroke and rub the horse to make it calm or happy and how to signal the horse to do certain commands. I had never heard about those techniques and got to learn what real horse whispering is! Following their presentation, my group presented and we talked about adaptive painting and sculpturing. We gave several adaptive equipment  ideas and showed techniques for different populations to use. From my own research, I learned about a college student who is blind and paints using a paint substance to draw his image. It leaves a raised outline of what he drew and he then paints in the spaces by feeling the difference in the textures between the different colors. I thought this was amazing and very impressive.

The final group presented on adaptive high ropes courses. They talked about how many different people can use high ropes courses to boost self confidence and self esteem, learn teamwork, and strengthen social skills. They showed a clip of a person in a wheel chair going across a high bridge which I thought was crazy! It just goes to show that anyone really can participate in recreation activities. So far we have learned about a few different activities that can be adapted for different populations and next week we will find out more!