What is COPE?

What is COPE?

COPE stands for Challenging Outdoor Personal Experience. It comprises group initiative games, low course (12 feet and under), and high course activities (about 30 feet high). Some of the activities involve a group challenge while others test individual skills and agility. Participants climb, jump, balance, swing, and find many solutions to a variety of activities. Group activities are ideal for emphasizing the patrol method and developing leadership skills. The activities are not designed to be competitive or to be a race against time. More important goals such as leadership, trust, teamwork, self-esteem, problem solving, communication, and decision making are emphasized.

Goals

Adventure programs of any kind have a greater purpose than just having fun. They are designed to present a quality educational experience for every individual within a group. There are seven major goals/objectives that are commonly associated with the adventure program known as Project COPE. These goals/objectives are listed below with a brief description:

LEADERSHIP: Leadership is sometimes appointed, elected, or just naturally given and assumed. Leadership can be exhibited by loud commands, softly spoken suggestions, shared participation, or no actions at all. A COPE Course provides numerous opportunities for leadership to be displayed and challenged. Learning the skills of leadership is one of the anticipated outcomes of Project COPE.
PROBLEM SOLVING: Problem Solving is done by the group and individual participants at each element. The group or individual then has the opportunity to test its solutions and evaluate the results.
COMMUNICATION: Communication is important to any group attempting to accomplish a difficult task. A tremendous amount of communication is exhibited in many ways on a COPE Course.
SELF-ESTEEM: Self-Esteem is developed by successfully accomplishing a task as set forth by the instructor. This happens both on an individual and team basis.
TRUST: Trust in the instructors, the safety of the course, each other, and themselves must be developed to successfully solve difficult tasks. Trust will be challenged many times while during a COPE experience.
DECISION MAKING: Decision Making requires the group to develop a solution, think through the probable results, and evaluate the results in terms of the resources available and required. Several possible solutions can be evaluated until the decision is made as to which is the best solution.
TEAMWORK: Teamwork is the key to everything on a COPE Course. By using teamwork the group achieves a successful (and sometime unsuccessful) conclusion to a variety of problems. During the period in which a group is on the course, it will become abundantly clear that no individual can "do it" alone, it requires a complete group effort.

More About COPE

History

Awards for Participating

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Updated Thursday, 02-Sep-1999 12:35:22 CDT.