BARRHEAD - Ntala Quintilio, Outreach Coordinator for Biathlon Alberta, gave Barrhead Composite High School students the opportunity to test their biathlon skills on Oct. 16.
Biathlon is a combination of cross-country skiing and rifle shooting.
“Being from the area I have a special interest in sharing this opportunity with students,” said Quintilio.
“I was up north with Indigenous Cree students for an entire week coaching biathlon skills."
"The skills are shooting and skiing, but also determination and sportsmanship.”
Quintilio brought an electronic shooting system that allowed students to practice their shooting ability using the simulator.
She talked about the process of how to use the electronic shooting system.
They are bulletless, silent, safe, and simple.
Quintilio cautioned the students to use care when practising their shooting, walking through the motions with the group and then individually as students started to take turns practising.
Students were split into teams of four with each student getting multiple attempts with the simulator equipment.
“Having expert people come in and do things is learning for me and learning for the kids,” Kyle Decker, physical education teacher, said.
“We want to expose them to different things not only hockey, volleyball or basketball. (It's) nice to have a variety of options for students.”
After all the students did their shooting of targets the groups were matched against each other to participate in a touch point rally and then shooting the targets with the combination of running and shooting.
Quintilio added that for every miss at the targets, students had to do a push-up.
A few of the students hit all of the targets during practice.
In the scrimmage, the students experienced the challenge of running and then switching to the exactness of shooting.
It was evident that the students were enjoying the unique activity.
“I thought it was pretty good,” said Kayden Evarts.
Evan Redington said, “I thought it was really good learning experience.”
Austin Fisher said, “It was really cool to see that they could bring stuff like that to the school. So awesome!”
“It was lots of fun! It was really interesting in seeing that (biathlon) in the school, a different type of learning.” shared another student.
One of the students added, “It is different, turns out I’m not so good at it.”
