MSU Extension 4-H Adulting 101

Adulting 101 session. Stay Safe Out There. We are excited to have you join us. Whether you're out in nature at a park or whether you're camping or maybe you're in a public space such as a college campus or a city or some other venue event, there are some very important tips to stay safe out there that are important for all of us to know and understand as we navigate the world. Today's presenters are going to share some common tips and some very specific strategies. That you might be able to use in any of these spaces that you might encounter this summer or beyond. I am your host for tonight's webinar. My name is Laurie Rivetto I am an Extension Educator with MSU Extension. I'm based in Wayne County. My pronouns are she, her and hers, and I am part of a team that gets to do career exploration, workforce readiness topics with young people, helping our young people be beyond ready for their future. And as a reminder, this webinar is in a webinar format. So therefore, we don't have videos for all of you. And we're going to be using Q&A for questions for our presenters. I will be keeping an eye on that and helping with making sure we get responses to some of your questions. You can ask questions throughout the presentation, specifically because we have the topic split into two sections. But we're also going to have time at the end for any questions that you have of our presenters. So before we get started, I would just love to have our presenters introduce themselves. So, Joe, if you would like to go first. Sure. Thanks, Laurie. My name is Joe Kreider. I work with MSU Extension in the 4-H program. I'm the Natural Resources and Outdoor Education Educator. I get to work with staff and volunteers around the state, supporting our summer camps, different clubs that do backpacking and other outdoor recreation type stuff. And then I do direct work with youth too, so I get to work at some of our camps. I'm not just sitting behind my desk all the time. I'm glad to be here and happy to see all of you. Thanks, Joe. And how about you, Marissa? Hi everyone. My name is Marissa Raterink. I work here at MSU with the Department of Police and Public Safety, and I am what we call a Community Liaison Coordinator. And that basically just means that I get to work out in the neighborhoods or in the residence halls that the students live in while they're taking classes here and just make sure that everything that they might need from the Department of Police and Public Safety is available to them in the neighborhood that they're living at. And then I also get to do a lot of fun stuff like this, presentations and go to lots of different events where the department is requested. Thanks, Marissa. So all of our programs at MSU Extension are open to all. We embrace our responsibility to be a resource for all and we're committed to providing programs to all segments of our community. We're excited that you're all joining us from wherever you're joining us. We know that we also have people from across the country, so that's pretty awesome. And we appreciate all the unique differences and experiences that you bring to the table and thanks for joining us today. So similar to having a plan for safety, we do have a plan for what we're going to be talking about tonight. So first off, we're going to look at staying safe in public places, large crowds, travel, Then we'll look at staying safe in the outdoors and in nature. We'll have questions for our presenters. We'll go over what's next, and then we'll have some time for reflection and a thank you for all of you for attending. Before we get started though, I would love to find out and our presenters would as well, where you are interested in going, in being, where you might be needing to stay safe in the near future. I do have a poll that I am going to launch and see where you all might want to go or visit in the near future. You can actually choose more than one on this poll. If there's more than one response that speaks to you, go ahead and select more. The choices are a national or state park, a big city, another continent, such as Europe or Asia, Africa, et cetera, a different US state, the mountains, a beach, a campsite, maybe a friend or family member's home or community, a lake, an amusement park, a college campus, a concert or festival. Again, there can be some overlap. Maybe you want to go to a concert in Europe, so you choose both of those. We've got about 63% of our group has responded, so I'll give a little more time for others. If you're watching this recording, go ahead and think about where you might want to go. I'm going to end the poll and let's see what we've got. Marissa and Joe, we've got 6 out of our 12 respondents at a national or state park. We have 5 out of 12 at a big city, we're split there. 7 out of 12 want to go to another continent. That's pretty cool. 5 want to go to a different US state. We've got 7 that want to go to mountains, 5 who want to go to a beach. We have a couple that want to go to a campsite. And we've got some who want to go to a friend or family members, and then we've got a few for lake Amusement Park College campus, and then five for a concert or festival, quite a range. So I think with that, I'm going to turn it over to Marissa. Awesome. So as we already went over, my name is Marissa and I work with there Pace Public Safety here at MSU. I do like to mention while I work on campus here at MSU and our job is kind of focused on safety at MSU, a lot of what we discuss and think about can really be transferred to just about anywhere. Another little fun fact about me is that I am also a 4-H Alum. When I was able, I showed just about every animal that I could over in Ottawa County. I also was able to come to MSU and show here a few times as well as attend Exploration Days when I was a bit younger. Um, and getting to be a part of those programs really made me appreciate what MSU has to offer, kind of led me to choose to go to school here, and then that kind of led me to my job here. So for today, again, we already talked about it, but I'd just like to talk a little bit about how we can keep ourselves safe, keep our communities safe, as well as some different options, resources, and ways that we can react if we ever in situations where we may feel unsafe. I think we're going to do another poll here. Yeah, we're going to try a poll or actually, since we've got a fairly reasonable group, we might be able to use chat. If people want to use chat, would that work, Marissa? Sounds good to me. All right. So if you want to just share what they should be doing, people can respond in the chat. Yeah, for sure. I just have these two different photos. Highlighting some different people walking around. And I just was wondering if you all would be willing to just take a look at them, think about who maybe seems safer, what image seems to be a bit of a safer situation, and if you have any reasons why or just you can tell me what you noticed about the photos from a safety standpoint. So we got the one on the left, makes me think that the person isn't totally aware of their surroundings. That's true. I agree. With the headphones and being on the phone again very distracted. Yep. If anybody else has more ideas, just keep them going. Those are definitely some of the first things that I notice as well. I do think it's important to realize and recognize that there are going to be situations where you probably are going to need to look at your phone if you're maybe in an unfamiliar area and you need to look at a map or something, and you can totally do that and still be safe. But it is also important to remember. You also want to be aware of your surroundings, what's going on around you. Someone just mentioned safer in a group. That was actually what I was just going to say. Another thing that is always good, if you can have a buddy, have a buddy. Like the people on the right. Another thing that I noticed, the photo on the left, it seems like it might be getting darker. Again, that's another thing that we can't always control. Sometimes we're just going to have to be out and about in the dark. But in those situations, just making sure that we're choosing the safest way to do it. On a well lit path, things like that. The other thing, it might be hard to see with our little boxes, but all the way on the right, there's also a little safety setup thing that the individuals who are walking there seem to be aware of, which is always really great if there's ever things made available to you wherever you are in regards to safety. It's good to know where those are and what they are. Um, so yeah, thank you for participating. So as far as traveling to new places, traveling to new places can be intimidating, but we are lucky to live in a time where you can look up and get a lot of information about a new place before you even go there or arrive at that destination. Online resources are probably going to vary depending on if you are in maybe a big city versus a state park like we were talking about earlier. But oftentimes, you're going to be able to find lots of different helpful information, possibly maps, transportation information, parking information. I'm sure Joe will talk about it more later, but things like critters or plants you might want to stay away or be aware of, things like that. Um, you might even be able to find an app or a website or something similar that is dedicated solely to safety in the place that you are. An example is here on campus, we have an MSU SafeApp that really just has all things safety right in one app, so it can be super helpful. Another example I have here on the screen is from Columbus, Ohio. They have an app that's all about the city. They do include safety in there, but they also include lots of other things. I think they had listings of restaurants, shops, stuff like that. So again, different options or different opportunities in different areas, but you'll never know unless you look. In the middle, I have just a screenshot that I took right off the right off line from information about New York subways. You can look up the schedule for a lot of different ones. I didn't even understand all of what I was looking at, but you can find lots of good information about that type of stuff. And then all the way over on the right, I actually have a personal example. I was able to go to Puerto Rico earlier this year, and they have a national rainforest there that I had never been to, but was hoping to explore. And just by doing a little bit of research online, I was able to find that the National Park Service actually has an entire app, again, that has lots of different helpful resources. I was able to actually download the map so that I would still be able to use it if I lost service, which was very helpful because I did. So yeah, really just looking into what options there are. It typically isn't too hard to find these things. Normally just takes a Google search and a little bit of digging. But depending on the situations that you encounter while you're traveling, these things can come in in big handy. So it's definitely worth it. Another thing that can always be really helpful, but can especially be helpful if you happen to be traveling or if you're in an unfamiliar location is going to be sharing your location with a parent, trusted adults, and then also probably whoever you're traveling with can be really helpful if somebody happens to get lost. Someone has to run off to the bathroom and can't find the group back, whatever the case may be, can be really helpful. It can also be helpful if there's ever an emergency, you know where everybody that you're with are supposed to be with, you know where they are. Even if you don't necessarily plan to split off, it can be really helpful to have a meeting place. If you happen to be in a city or on a college campus, whatever the case may be. Having a place where you know you can go to if, say, your phone dies, something like that, and you're not really sure where the rest of the group is, can be really helpful to have a planned meeting space just in case something like that does happen. With this, it is really important to be mindful of who you are sharing your location with. Be sure that you're only sharing that with people that you trust and probably keeping it to a few people. With that, also being mindful of what you're posting, not posting anything with too much detail that could end up being harmful, is really important. As far as different apps and stuff to use, I know that find my iPhone is super helpful if you happen to have an iPhone, but if you don't, there's also different options like Life 360, and I'm sure there's a whole bunch of different apps. If you don't happen to have an iPhone or prefer that option. Another thing that can be really helpful to consider, especially when you're in an unfamiliar location, again, is your personal items, your luggage, what you're taking with you and how to keep those things safe and protected. It's always good to only pack what you need as this will leave you with less things to be responsible for. I totally understand wanting to be prepared for everything and pack everything because I am guilty. But it also just makes you responsible for more things. So trying to limit what you need, what you truly, truly need or limit what you take to what you truly need can be really helpful just as it makes you responsible for less things. You got to carry less things around with you. It's really helpful to know what you brought with you, of course, and it can even be helpful to note, make a list of some of the things that you brought with you, particularly the things that are valuable or really important to you, just to ensure that everything that you took with you is coming back home with you. If you happen to have multiple electronic devices that you don't want to get lost, you can also connect those or yeah, connect those through find my iPhone as well so that if they happen to get lost, you should be able to find them. Again, I'm sure there's other apps as well if you don't happen to have an iPhone that do the same thing or similar things. Another option is always using an airtag or a tile or some sort of personal tracking device on valuables or even just in your bag. I personally always throw an airtag into my luggage, especially if I'm checking it. And the first thing that I do when my plan lands is make sure that my luggage is at the same place as me. And it's nice to know that it's at the same place, and it also would obviously come in handy if it didn't end up coming to the same place as me. So that can always be an option as well. If ever possible, it is helpful also to just leave what you can back at your accommodations, your hotel, your Airbnb, or even in a locked vehicle, preferably the trunk of the locked vehicle, if it's safe to do so. Again, just making you responsible for less items, less things to carry around. Another good thing to do is label your bags with luggage tags. Be mindful that you don't want to put too much information on there, but enough information that if your bag just happen to get lost, maybe a phone number, someone can call you, get that bag back to you. That can also be really helpful. Next slide just have this little video talking about how we can play a role in keeping our community safe. I'm a firefighter. A teacher. I'm a farmer. I'm a barber. A waitress, a mom. We're all part of your community. Every day we move in and out of each other's busy lives. It's easy to take for granted all the little moments that make up our everyday. Some are good, others not so much. But that's life. It's when you experience a moment of uncertainty, something or someone's behavior that doesn't seem quite right. These are the moments to take a pause. Because if something doesn't feel right, it's probably not. It's not about paranoia or being afraid. It's about standing up and protecting our communities. One detail at a time. Because a lot of little details can become a pattern. We. We. We. We trust our instincts. Just like you should. Because only you know what's not supposed to be in your everyday. So protect your every day. If you see something suspicious, say something to local authorities. I'm a firefighter. So if you see something, say something is kind of like a slogan or a little jingle that we like to use here on campus, it actually is a national campaign that was headed up by the Department of Homeland Security. So you will likely see it other places other than just here at Michigan State. And basically, like the video said, just means if you see or hear something that seems off to go ahead and report it either to local authorities or a trusted adult. I also always like to highlight that if there's something that seems off, but you don't necessarily know that you need to report it, you also are always able and welcome to just remove yourself from the situation. That sometimes can be the safest thing for us as well. So if you see or hear something, how exactly can you go about saying something? There typically is a few different options for reporting crimes, depending on the area that you're in. Of course, if you're ever in an emergency, call 911 immediately. Across the US, a large majority of dispatch centers also can receive texts to 911, which we will talk a bit more on the next slide. Many police departments also offer the option to report a tip. The ways in which we can do this kind of varies depending again on where you are, what jurisdiction you are reporting through. But a lot of times you can do this by texting, calling, or even going online and just submitting something right online through the website. If you're curious or want to know how you can maybe report a tip in the area that you live or places that you frequent, you can typically go right onto the police department's website or the dispatch center's website for your area and figure out how you can go about reporting a tip. Reporting a tip can be really helpful if there's not necessarily an active emergency, but you have information that you'd like to relay to the police department. An example could be there's a shattered car window in a parking lot that you notice, but there's nobody actively trying to break into the car or really around that seems to be doing anything in that given moment. It'd be good to let officers or the police department know that this has happened, but they maybe don't need to be out there that exact second since the emergency is not currently occurring. Another example could be if you find something in the roadway that's maybe not safe for you to hop out of the car and take care of it. There'd be another example where you could report a tip and just let the department know that something's going on and let them take care of it when they have the opportunity. So again, you can actually also text 911, which I always like to let people know. They do prefer if you're able to call that you call 911. Their phrase that they like to use is call if you can, text if you can't. It's just a little bit easier for dispatch centers to file through calls than it is texts, and they like to get those calls so that if people are in a situation where they text, that's kind of the one text that they're getting and they can take care of that right away. So a few examples where texting to 911 would be pretty applicable. Of course, if you are hard of hearing or have a speech disability, a good opportunity to use that texting. If you happen to ever be in a threatening situation where you feel like making a call could possibly increase the threat, That's a great time to text 911. Even further, I would say that it can become even more threatening if it's obvious that who you're talking to on the phone is 911. So again, a great time to use that texting opportunity. If you happen to have an injury or a medical condition and aren't able to speak or are unable to call, another great time to text. And lastly, if you, for some reason don't have enough mobile reception or cell service to make a call, but you're able to push through a text, that would be another great opportunity to use that texting. So when you happen to report a crime or a situation to a dispatcher, there's typically going to be pretty similar questions that they ask or pretty similar information that they want to know about the situation. I always like to highlight not knowing one or multiple of these things should never discourage you from reporting. You don't need by any means, need to know all of these things to be able to make a report. Some of these details are just helpful for them to be able to relay to whoever is responding. But if you don't know, that's not a big deal at all, and don't let it stop you from reporting whatever's going on. So typically, I kind of look at it as 4 large things that they're going to want to know. They're going to want to know who, what, when and where. They're going to want to know who was involved, and typically how you as the reporter are related to the situation. So if you are just a witness, if you are the victim, they're going to want to know that. They're going to want to know what has happened while you're making the call, what the situation is, what's going on. They're also going to want to know when the situation occurred. Timing, if it's currently happening, or if it has concluded, if the event has concluded, things like that. They're just going to want to know the timeline of what's going on. And then location. They're also going to want to know where this is happening, where you are, where the incident is, and what's going on. And again, not knowing the answers to these shouldn't discourage you from reporting at all. It's just good to know these things. The next slide, I have a video. That talks a bit about a service that is available to help with the location question. If you ever are in a place where you maybe don't know the address or if you're in a place that just doesn't have an address, those 3 words can be super helpful. Have you ever struggled to find a friend? Had a taxi take you to the wrong entrance, a package delivered to the wrong address or couldn't explain where you were. We developed What 3 Words because addressing around the world should be better, and talking about a location can be really hard. Addresses aren't unique, they're easy to confuse, don't point to specific entrances, and for a lot of places, they don't exist at all. People struggle to find each other and businesses fail to reach customers. It's frustrating, costs the economy billions and affects lives. What 3 Words is a solution? It has divided the world into 3 meter squares and given each one a unique 3 word address. It's as simple as saying Lanes.larger.daring to find a specific location on Earth. Around the world, people are using 3 word addresses for everything, from telling their car where to go and finding that tucked away cottage to getting deliveries and directing emergency services to the right place. What 3 Words is helping to make the world a less frustrating, more efficient and safer place. 3 words at a time. That is What 3 Words. And as Ryan mentioned in the chat, location is super important when you are reporting anything. They got to know where they can go to provide help or provide whatever you need. But we also recognize, like I mentioned, and as the video mentioned, not everywhere has an address. We don't always know the address to where we are. So I just always like to share What 3 Words as an option. To help with that. I think it's kind of interesting. The first adopters in the US for What 3 Words because What 3 Words is actually not a US company. But the first adopters were actually the National Park Service. It's kind of surprising to me because I always think about it in a reporting lens, but of course, super helpful to people who are working or hanging out or exploring the national parks, since addresses are probably pretty lacking in those types of areas. and again, it is also super helpful to remember that What 3 Words can be used in non emergency situations as well, like the video mentioned, concerts, big sporting events. It can be super helpful to find the people that you want to meet up with or whatever the case may be. Another really helpful resource that is quite easy to access is 988. It is a number functioning similarly to 911, but it has a focus on mental health, substance use crisis, and suicide prevention. If you or anyone you know ever could use some support, 988 is a 24/7 service that is available through calling, texting, or visiting their website. Upon contacting 988, you will be connected with a mental health professional who can provide you support and will also be able to provide some resources regardless of the crisis that you're experiencing. The service, this is really special. The service is also available in over 240 languages, so it's available to many different people. Lastly, I just have some contact information for the department if anybody needs it or wants it. It will also be available on the website that Laurie will send out following this meeting. So that is really all that I had, and I would like to pass it over to Joe. ( no sound)Joe, we're not hearing you right now, so you might want to check where your audio is. Can you hear me now? There you go. Yeah, we're back. There we go. Okay. I was just saying thanks, Marissa, and we are going to pivot slightly, but a lot of the stuff that she talked about will apply to my portion as well. So we're going to focus on safety in natural areas, hiking trails, public parks, areas that may be still nearby your home or neighborhood, but are a little more secluded. We'll start with this poll that Laurie just launched. I'd just like to get an idea from people. What's your favorite outdoor activity and where do you spend most of your time outdoors doing that? You'll see your options there. If you can go ahead and respond, then we'll see what you say. So here we got a single choice, everybody. What's your favorite outdoor activity? You got to make a tough choice? Is it day hiking, camping, fishing, wildlife or bird watching? I added birds, Joe, or other. Then where do you spend most of your time outdoors? Again, you got to make a tough choice A nature trails, public parks in my neighborhood or in my own backyard or property. We've got a couple of things in the chat too. We've got cross country and track and climbing trees. Nice. Climbing trees is a classic. I'm going to give a few more seconds for everyone to complete making their tough choices. Let's see what we have. A lot of day hiking, which is good. We'll talk quite a bit about that. I know I threw in other in there and that's a pretty broad category. I'm thinking some of the stuff in the chat. Yeah. Probably people people who selected that other. Then a lot of folks, it looks like the majority at nature trails or in their own backyard. That's good to know moving forward. We did get in the chat, Joe, people were saying walking or biking in particular and swimming as well came up a couple of times, people also like doing that outside. That might be some of our others as well. Perfect. Thank you, everybody, for filling that out. Then we'll move on to the rest of the presentation. Our guiding questions here today are we want to think about what potential hazards you should be considering when you're going outdoors to do any of those activities. You just mentioned, what's the best way to prepare for those, and then how you can stay alert while you're enjoying the outdoors. I mean that they're not exclusive. It's important to be aware for your own safety, but it doesn't mean that you can't enjoy yourself because being aware of your surroundings also helps you appreciate nature more. So when we think about risk associated with the outdoors, we tend to sometimes overemphasize certain risks and forget about others. So we tend to think of the most dramatic, most severe scenarios that can happen, a bear attack, for example. That's obviously something that's really severe, but it really doesn't happen all that often. I know we've got people tuning in from all over, but in Michigan, we've got black bears. That's far less likely to happen than something like spraining an ankle or simply getting turned around while you're out hiking. We think of risk in terms of severity and frequency. And so a bear attack is something that has a high severity, but again, doesn't happen all that often. And some of these other things that we're going to talk about might not happen or do happen more often, and they might not be as severe in the immediate moment, but if they're not addressed right away, if they're not handled properly, they can become pretty serious. Yeah, there was a comment in the chat about heat exhaustion in particular. Yeah. Yeah. And we'll talk about that in a little bit. So thank you for that. So I kind of divided up the risks that we're going to talk about today into these 3 different categories. There's environmental risks listed there, things in the environment, environmental conditions that can pose a threat. There's health and physical risks that are often linked to those environmental conditions, dehydration, exhaustion, and exposure to extreme elements. And then there's a safety and navigation category that we'll talk a little bit about crime in parks and natural areas because unfortunately, sometimes parks and natural areas being a little more secluded attract, that kind of activity. Then we'll talk about becoming lost, which is something that can happen. Quite often. So in terms of mitigating risk, these environmental risks, we're starting with severe weather and really to prepare for severe weather, the obvious things of checking and rechecking the forecast. So if you're planning an activity a week out, don't just check the weather the week before, check it in the days leading up to that, check it that day, and even when you're out there on the trail or in your park, keep an eye out for changes in the weather and have a plan. So if you're going for a day hike and you're hiking 5 miles out from your car, If you're at 5 miles out and, you know, getting back to your car is your only shelter, that's quite a distance. You know, research the area that you're going to ahead of time to know if there's other shelter options nearby. If you do get caught in severe weather, this picture on the bottom right is what is recommended as like the lightning position, they call it. So getting low to the ground and having minimal contact with the ground, covering your ears and spreading out from others reduces the likelihood that you'll be struck by lightning. Plant life can a lot of times just be annoying. But again, depending on your own body and how it reacts to things, it could be more serious. Staying on the trail is an important way to handle this. Trails are cleared maintained path, you're less likely to bump up against something that is going to cause a reaction. If you can wearing long pants and long sleeves, even in the summer, if it's not super hot, that'll help. You have less exposed skin area that could brush up against a plant and then practicing identification of what's in your area so that you know what it is and you can avoid it. In Michigan, we've got two different varieties of poison ivy. In the bottom left, that's what that picture is. Then the other picture on the right is stinging nettle, which is really not very fun. Close toed shoes, I see in the chat is also a great point and that's not just for plant life, that'll come up again in another slide. Some of these things that you're going to see will repeat. You're seeing stay on the trail again when we talk about wildlife. Be looking for these things that are repeating themes as we go through. Staying on the trail helps you be able to see better and it helps wildlife be able to see you better versus if you're going off trail in thicker brush, animals know where trails are and that people travel them in areas that people frequently visit. You're just reducing the chance that you're going to surprise any wildlife. Keep your distance from wildlife, even if it's not something that you associate with danger like a bear, it's just best to keep your distance when you're observing. We always say if you're close enough to change the behavior of an animal, you're probably too close. Be careful with your food. A lot of areas where there are interactions between humans and bears, it often has to do with people leaving food out, people leaving trash out, or people feeding wildlife. Those are all things that you should not do. You should make some noise, so you want to travel with somebody like Marissa mentioned, and even just walking down the trail having a conversation will alert wildlife that you're there without disturbing the peace for everybody. Then when we think about wildlife, we're not just talking about big scary bears. There's mosquitoes and black flies, which again, like plant life are a lot of times just irritating. But depending on how your body reacts to things, it can be more serious than that. I am a redhead. I have pretty severe allergic reactions to a lot of things, and I've definitely had situations where I've gotten so many bug bites throughout the course of the day that by the time I was at the end of the day trying to go to sleep at my camp, it was just like a whole allergic reaction that was quite unpleasant and I really could have avoided quite easily. Another one to be aware of are ticks. In Michigan, we're seeing ticks more often. We're seeing them earlier in the year and later in the year than we used to and in places where we didn't used to see them. The American dog tick and the black legged tick are the most common, both carry diseases that they can transfer to you, wearing long pants when you can. Check your dogs also, absolutely. But the biggest thing I tell people with ticks is check yourself every day. If you get a tick off of you within 24 hours, it's not going to have a chance to transmit any harmful disease. Just making that a part of your routine while you're out there. Health and physical hazards, dehydration, exhaustion, and exposure. These are things that can be exacerbated by those environmental conditions. So when we think about dehydration, you want to make sure you have enough water, but also that you have it often. You want to be drinking water before you go out on a hike. You want to be drinking water consistently while you're hiking and not waiting till you're thirsty and then chugging a bunch of water because then your body is already in a deficit and it takes quite a bit to recover from that. Same thing with food, if you're going on a long hike, eat something every hour, even if that's a granola bar and you're taking a few bites of it every hour over the course of 3 hours, you're constantly using energy, so constantly be putting energy back into your body so that you don't get into that spot where you all of a sudden realize I'm really hungry and you've got to try to catch up. Listen to your body and know your limits. When you hike out, so a lot of day hikes, we're parking at a trailhead and we're hiking out and back. If you hike out for 2 hours, you've got at least 2 hours going back. If you hike out for 2 hours and some of it was downhill, all of that is uphill, pay attention to what your body's telling you and turn around, just head back when it's appropriate. Dressing appropriately for the weather, dressing in layers. Weather can change drastically throughout the course of a day. So being able to remove and add layers is a good way to be prepared. Then yeah, just consider weather and the time of the day as you're going out. Injuries, again, we're talking about staying on the trail. Trails are maintained at different levels depending on where you are, but you're able to see better when you're on the trail. Make sure that you're looking up, down and all around for anything that could pose a hazard. It could be low hanging branches. I've walked right into branches and almost gotten poked in the eye. Just keep awareness. I don't know how many of you have gone through driver's ed, but I tell you to scan all your mirrors, check your rearview, your side mirrors, just doing that scanning your surroundings as you're If you're really going on a hike on a trail that's not, you know, as well maintained, not as well groomed, having shoes with some kind of ankle support can be a big help. Bring a first aid kit that's appropriate to what you're doing. So if you're just doing a day hike, it doesn't have to be anything too crazy, but you might want to bring some anti itch ointment. You might want to bring bandages, Tylenol, if you sprain your ankle and you want some pain relief kind of thing. And then traveling together is another one that you're going to be seeing quite a bit. And with injuries, it just there's someone there to help you with your first aid. There's someone there to help carry your pack if you get injured and you have a pack, and just a best practice in general. So when it comes to crime, again, thinking about that picture that Marissa showed of the person wearing their headphones and walking alone, that's one thing that I always cringe when I see people hiking and they've got their earbuds in. I cringe at first just because I'm like, man, you can't hear the birds. That's a big part of this experience, but also you're eliminating a whole sense, one whole way that you can bring in sensory information. So don't wear your earbuds when you're hiking. Again, just doing that scanning and keeping that awareness. Um, carrying a whistle is good because it's a way to make some noise without expending as much energy as yelling for help. A lot of backpacking packs have them built right into the buckle, so that's pretty convenient and not a bad idea to have. A lot of parks and natural areas are open from dawn to dusk, sticking to those hours because most of the activity that you don't want to be associated with is going to happen outside of those. Traveling together again as a best practice. If you are out as it's getting dark, being mindful of lighting and visibility, can you be seen and can you see who's around you? Then sharing your plan with others, you can use apps like Marissa mentioned. I know Life 360 is one that I use with my kids that shares your location, but also just telling somebody, Hey, I'm going out for this hike today, I'll be back around this time, and I'll reach out. Then if you don't return, they know to sound the alarm. Becoming lost happens, and staying on the trail, even if you get lost on a trail, you're more likely to be found if you're on a trail. Researching the area ahead of time and knowing the lay of the land, knowing what's around you even outside of the area that you're planning to spend your time in. Use trail maps if they're available. Practice using a compass, even basic compass skills can be really helpful. Then again, sharing your plan with others. If we take a look at this map, this is a map that I think is an example of a pretty good trail map with a lot of helpful information. Take a second to just look at this map and think about what sticks out to you that might be useful if you're going to go hike in this area. You can throw things in the chat if you'd like. Interesting. While people are putting things in the chat, Joe, I'm just going to read a question that did come in. Would you recommend that someone wear certain colors to stand out and be seen easily? Yeah, absolutely. During hunting season, anytime you're out, you're wearing that blaze orange and that is a great color to wear really any time of the year if you want to be visible. Yeah, I would recommend that or at least having something with you that is bright like that or reflective. So if you need to signal, you have it. So add to the chat, anything that you see that's helpful for this map. Yeah. Helpful. I see the red line and yellow line being mentioned, that yellow line being the park boundary, and that red line being the main trail. But a couple of other things I wanted to point out are, you know, the trail markers, mileage is labeled in between each trail marker. There are spur trails. So up in the top right corner here, the northeast, there's a couple of trails that overlap with this main trail and then kind of offshoot off of it. So that's helpful to know because you could, if you get turned around, end up on one of those trails. The other thing that I see here is the roads that surround this trail. So I know if I get lost and I'm on the the south side of this river, if I head south, I'll hit Brown Bridge Road. If I'm on the north side of this river and I get lost, if I head north, I'll come to Hobbs Highway at some point. And so that's where those basic compass skills could come into play. We've also got in the chat cross hatches or dots. There's cross hatching that indicates an area that's open to hunting, during hunting season, that's good to know. You can avoid that area. I'm not sure what the dots are, honestly. It looks like maybe that's core area or maybe that's just the green. But again, just a good example of a map that's got some pretty good useful information, and this is the kind of thing you want to look for. I'll also say that natural areas, hiking trails, if you're in a state park or a county park or areas that are managed by land conservancies, a lot of those places are going to have some kind of online platform these days, whether it's a website or Facebook page, check those out before you go out because they often will put up, there's been increased bear activity or the river has flooded this part of the trail, just things that are good to know before you get out there. We also had a note about handicapped accessibility places and also that the trails might have different colors with different difficulty levels, so people don't take a trail that's a terrain that there might be too much for them. Yeah, that's a great point. This map, I don't think has that, but you'll see that often and that's great information to have. Good point. Okay. So we've talked about, like day hikes, going out to a natural area for the day. If you do go out on longer type expeditions, backpacking for several days or a week, all this stuff applies that we've talked about. In addition to that, here are some other recommendations. So I tell people to document with photos. And what I mean by that is before you go out, before you start your trip, take a picture of your group, you know, even just do it at the trailhead before you head out if you can and send that to somebody who's not with you, who you've left your trip plan with. That way, if you do get lost, people can look at that and they have a description of who's there, they know what they were wearing. Even taking a picture of the bottoms of everybody's shoes, we know that these are the tread patterns that we're looking for if people get lost. If I go out with a group of youth, I usually contact local authorities, whether it's a county sheriff's department or the state police and say, you know, here's where our group is going, this is what we're doing and basically just filing your trip plan with them. But you can also do that just with a trusted contact so they know when you're supposed to return. And then this last slide, I called avoiding the spiral. So a lot of this stuff seems and it's not, it's not a big deal on its own. You know, you may be thinking, you know, you want me to be worried about mosquitoes, right? But what happens is one thing can lead to another. It affects your decision making and you get into this spiral where one thing that wasn't so bad leads to all these other issues and pretty soon you're in an actually pretty bad situation. That can be like I just hiked a little too far, or I got injured and I had to stay out for longer and I didn't really bring enough water. So that's another reason that it's really great to have people with you who you can lean on to help make those decisions. And then this is just calling out those strategies that we saw repeat throughout the presentation. So just keeping those in mind, those are great strategies to help with all of these risks. And the picture on here is just an example of a trip plan for a day hike. And you'll notice that it does say, what's your tent look like? What's your vehicle make, model, color so that people know what to look for in the area where you are. And that is pretty much the end. I just wanted to end by saying, you know, there's risk associated with everything that you do and it's worth it, right? This is my pitch that it's worth it to get outside and go for hikes, camp, do this kind of thing. There's a lot of physical and mental health benefits to getting outdoors. So I don't want you to leave just thinking about the risky side of it. You know, just plan and prepare for those things and get out there, basically. I think that's a good summary for what Marissa shared and what you shared, Joe, is that, living life comes with a certain amount of risk and dangers, but that doesn't mean we don't live it, we just make our plans to be safe while we're in those spaces. Thanks to both of you for sharing and we are at question and answer time. I know we've had some questions been put in the chat. I'm fine with questions in the chat or you can use question and answer feature at the bottom of the webinar button and put your questions in there. What questions do you have for either Marissa or Joe or both of them, since we know there's some overlap in messages. (..no sound...) Again, Thank You for the presentation Definitely would love to hear what you are taking away from today as well. So you can share that in the chat. We'd love to hear that. What have you learned? What's a big takeaway for you? Something that you're going to do differently? Maybe something that you're going to take into action in the near future. I have a survey that I'm also going to put in the chat. Learned how to stay safe on trails. Awesome. There's also a QR code on the screen that if you want to scan that to do the survey, we'd appreciate that. Tick information was really helpful. So, somebody else that they learned about ticks. That also is a note that an email will be coming out probably on Monday with a lot of resources from both Marissa and Joe. I put a few things in the chat, but if you didn't get to capture all of those, that's okay. The email is going to come out with all of that. We also have more Adulting 101 webinars coming up. Our next one will be June 2nd at 6:30 on International Travel On a Budget. If you're interested in doing some travel, you'll learn some safety tips today and you'll learn some budgeting tips in June in just a few weeks. So lots of great information in our whole series, including meal planning and peer pressure being discussed this summer. We got more comments about the bottom of shoes, genius Joe. Well, we thank you all for joining us if there are no questions, which I'm not seeing any, means that it was a great content and everyone absorbed everything from both of you. So thank you for sharing. Thank you all for joining us this evening. I'm going to stop our recording. We'll stick around for a little bit if there's questions that anyone might have, but thank you again for joining us. Have a great night. All right.