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Walkabout

schedule
Time Frame

30-60 min

groups
Group size

10-40

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Facilitation lvl

beginner

window
Comfort zone

safe

The connection between walking and enhanced creativity has a long history. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1889) wrote, “All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking”. New research has backed up what many have thought for centuries with data, quantifying the effect of walking on human thought. Researchers at Stanford recently found that walking outside led to almost 3 times as many creative ideas as sitting indoors. This simple activity can be used individually or in groups to start a workshop or project or when you are feeling a creative block.

Materials

Directions Dice, marker pen, paper, tape or glue.

Step 1

Print out the directions dice, or if you can’t print them, create your own by copying the design.

Glue or tape it together.

Facilitator notes:

You may use regular dice as follows: 1 = walk forwards straight ahead, 2 = turn to the left, 3 = turn to the right, 4 = go forwards heading diagonally to the left, 5 = go forwards heading diagonally to the right, 6 = walk forwards straight ahead

Step 2

You are going to take a walk using the directional dice.

Even though you may not have a large space to walk in, you can walk with the idea of seeing your current environment with new eyes.

Step 3

Roll the die to tell you what direction to head in.

What can you see that you hadn’t noticed before?

Wander around your current environment looking for something you hadn’t noticed before.

Step 4

Make a list of your observations.

Write about, photograph or draw what you see on your walk.

Step 5

If undertaking the activity in a group, invite all participants to share their observations on undertaking the activity.

Step 6

Reflection

Take time to reflect on what has emerged.

Reflection ideas could include the following (and come up with your own):

- What do you see?
- What do you sense?
- What's emerging?
- What do we need to stop doing?
- What do we need to start doing?
- By when?
- What else?

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