Welcome to the NOLS Instructor Course (IC). This document provides a list of NOLS curriculum materials that can be helpful for you as you prepare for your IC. These are not required reading. There may be areas you are weak in, but we expect you to play to your strengths during the IC, only teaching topics you have expertise in. We hope your IC is a great experience for you and your coursemates.

IC Reading List - Here is the latest version of our self-explanatory IC reading list.

Books that can help you prepare for your IC (applicable for any IC):

NOLS has two types of books that we use.

1) Student textbooks are intended for NOLS students and cover much of the basic information of the NOLS curriculum. If you need any of them you’ll need to buy them from the NOLS school store. Check out our school store if you want to see what titles we have. If you are not a NOLS grad, some of these books might be helpful.

2) Instructor notebooks are designed as teaching aids for instructors and have lesson plans and other teaching materials: this is what you need on an IC.

You should receive the NOLS Wilderness Educator Notebook with your enrollment paperwork. Most of that book is relevant for all NOLS ICs. Sailing, river and sea kayak ICs should look at your sections lower on this page.

Here are sections of other instructor notebooks you can use to help prepare for your IC.

Leadership Educator Notebook

• Ch 1-2 : Introduction and definition of leadership at NOLS (pdf)

Environmental Educator Notebook

• Environmental Studies at NOLS (pdf)
• Introduction by Ann Zwinger (pdf)
• Ch.2 Defining Enviro Ed (pdf)
• Ch.3 Enviro Ed Strategies (pdf)

Risk Management for Outdoor Leaders

• RMCh0.pdf - Introduction and contents
• RMCh1.pdf - Preparation and plans
• RMCh2.pdf - Teambuilding and communication
• RMCh3.pdf - Behaviors and attitudes
• RMCh4.pdf - Decision making and judgment
• RMCh5.pdf - Risk management curriculum in the field

Leave No Trace

NOLS is a founding partner with the national Leave No Trace program. Here are the Leave No Trace guidelines for many IC environments. If you are a NOLS graduate, these skills and ethics should be second nature by now. For the 50% of IC students who are not NOLS graduates, you should look carefully at the LNT booklet for your region and be ready to support these principles. Your course is an LNT Master Educator Course, so you’ll get trained how to run LNT Trainer courses using these principles.

• LNT North America (pdf)
• LNT Rocky Mountains (pdf)
• LNT Sea Kayaking (pdf)
• LNT Desert Canyon (pdf)
• LNT Alaska (pdf)

Prepping for your WFR (Wilderness First Responder) test

All NOLS instructors need to have current wilderness first aid certification at the WFR level or higher. All IC students need to pass the NOLS written WFR test which is typically at the start of the IC. The purpose of the test is to align your WFR training with NOLS medical protocols and establish consistent language. If you received your wilderness medicine training in a tropical location, are a person whose second language is English or if your skills are rusty we suggest you bone up on your first aid knowledge. Please take responsibility for getting your skills and knowledge up to speed.

The NOLS Wilderness Medicine book could help you learn the level of detail we expect you to have a strong command of, and the specific words we use for wilderness first aid.

If you speak English as a second language and primarily speak Spanish, French, or Swahili, please check out the relevant WFR glossary that explains our English WFR terms in your native tongue. The point of these glossaries is to help you learn to communicate first aid concepts with NOLS staff and students using English.

• WFR_Glossary_Espanol.pdf
• WFR_Glossary_Francais.pdf
• WFR_Glossary_Kiswahili.pdf

River IC Specific Materials

We generally use the ACA curriculum (with their permission) for teaching whitewater paddling skills. We also have a River Educator Notebook and we will give you a personal copy before or during your course. Here is a link to a PDF of the beginning of that book so you can see what’s in it.

• Ren 0_TOC&Intro (pdf)
• Ren 1_Leadership (pdf)
• Ren 2_EnviroStudies (pdf)
• Ren 3_OutdoorSkills (pdf)
• Ren 4_Group Travel (pdf)
• Ren 5_TeachingConsiderations (pdf)

Sailing IC Specific Materials

For open boats in Mexico we use our own NOLS Sailing Instructor Notebook. Please send a message to curriculum@nols.edu after you get enrolled and we’ll mail you some materials specific to that location and skill set. If you live outside of the USA, we may be limited in what we send you because of postage, tariffs, and reliability issues, and you’ll have to collect your materials at NOLS Mexico when your course starts.

For keelboat sailing we use the curriculum from the International Sail and Power Academy (ISPA)

Sea kayaking IC

• SKIN Ch.1 Introduction and contents (pdf)
• SKIN Ch.2 Travel skills (pdf)
• SKIN Ch.5 Teaching leadership on sea kayaking courses (pdf)
• SKIN Ch.6 Teaching risk management on sea kayaking courses (pdf)