Keentune

Survival Skills curriculum

9 chapters
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222 concepts
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free
Everything the adaptive question bank can teach and test in Survival Skills, from foundations through advanced practice. Work through it in order, or start practising and let the questions find your level.
New here? Read the Survival Skills guide
A free 18-minute primer — the mental model, the mistakes beginners make, and what to practise first.
A. Priorities and decision-making
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Rough survival limits for air, shelter, water and food.
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Air, severe bleeding, exposure, water, signalling, then food.
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Food feeling urgent while exposure is what kills.
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Stop, think, observe, plan before acting.
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Deliberate slowing as the first survival skill.
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Continuing a plan because of effort already spent.
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Goal fixation overriding hazard assessment.
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Why separation multiplies the problem.
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Most survival situations being avoidable.
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When moving improves the odds and when it does not.
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Leaving a note where you were last known to be.
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Inventory of injuries, resources, weather and time.
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Incoming weather overriding other priorities.
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Telling someone the route and the return time.
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Equipment carried without the skill to use it.
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Working backwards from remaining daylight.
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Effort spent now against calories and water available.
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Choosing the reversible option when unsure.
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Setting a time to abandon the objective before starting.
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Speaking up and the pressure not to.
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One person coordinating rather than parallel improvisation.
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Likelihood times consequence, applied before departure.
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Getting away with it teaching the wrong lesson.
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Navigation, light, sun, first aid, knife, fire, shelter, food, water, clothing.
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Two independent means for anything critical.
B. Shelter, exposure, and cold
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Conduction, convection, radiation, evaporation and respiration.
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The ground stealing more heat than the air.
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Why a sleeping pad matters more than a heavier blanket.
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Water conducting heat far faster than air.
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Cotton losing insulation when wet and drying slowly.
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Base, insulation and shell with distinct jobs.
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Venting before you soak the insulating layer.
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Away from water, widow-makers and cold sinks.
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Small enough for body heat to warm it.
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Debris hut, lean-to and using natural features.
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Snow as insulation, and the ventilation requirement.
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Dry, insulated, sheltered, then warm sweet drinks if alert.
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Vasodilation increasing heat loss while feeling warm.
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Melting snow costing body heat.
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Moving air accelerating convective loss.
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Staying with the vehicle and the exhaust hazard.
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Stumbles, mumbles, fumbles and grumbles as early indicators.
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What must be in the vehicle before the storm.
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Shivering, confusion, and loss of coordination.
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Cessation as deterioration, not recovery.
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Numb, waxy, pale tissue.
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Not rewarming if refreezing is possible.
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Prolonged cold wet exposure without freezing.
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Cold shock, swim failure and then hypothermia.
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One minute, ten minutes, one hour as the immersion timeline.
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Curling to reduce surface area in water.
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Kicking horizontal and rolling away from the break.
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Terrain, weather and snowpack as the assessment triad.
C. Heat, sun, and arid environments
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Getting out of direct sun as the first action.
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Travelling at night and resting through the heat of day.
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Evaporative cooling spending water you may not have.
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Drinking to need rather than rationing to failure.
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Sodium loss and why water alone can be insufficient.
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Over-drinking without electrolytes as a real hazard.
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Pacing to keep core temperature controllable.
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Elevated shade rather than lying on hot ground.
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Landmark scarcity and heat-haze distortion.
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Snow blindness and desert glare.
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Radiation, conduction and metabolic load.
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Physiological adaptation over days of exposure.
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High humidity defeating evaporative cooling.
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Loose, light-coloured, covering skin rather than removing it.
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Interior temperature rising fast and lethally.
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Early warning of fluid and electrolyte imbalance.
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Heavy sweating, weakness and nausea with clear thinking.
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Altered mental status as the decisive indicator.
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Flash flooding in channels that look safe.
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Aggressive cooling before anything else.
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Skin damage impairing thermoregulation.
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Combined temperature and humidity as the real exposure.
D. Water
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Protozoa, bacteria and viruses with different removals.
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A rolling boil, longer at altitude.
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Pore size removing protozoa and bacteria but not viruses.
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Iodine and chlorine, and their contact times.
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Reduced effectiveness in cold or cloudy water.
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Requiring clear water and working batteries.
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Removing sediment before any treatment.
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Catchment surfaces and the first-flush idea.
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Melting before drinking, never eating directly.
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Low-yield methods and their real limits.
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Frequently overrated relative to the effort and water spent building it.
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Concentrating waste rather than rehydrating.
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Vegetation, animal trails and terrain drainage.
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The most reliable treatment where fuel allows.
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Springs, moving water and collection points ranked.
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Standing water as the worst option.
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Livestock, mining and upstream human activity.
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Clear water still carrying pathogens.
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Salt load exceeding what the kidneys can excrete.
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Poor substitutes under exertion and heat.
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Containers, contamination and cold-weather freezing.
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Water in your body is more useful than water in the bottle.
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Thirst, urine colour, headache and confusion.
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Water outranking food in almost every scenario.
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Planning water weight against the distance.
E. Fire and signalling
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Warmth, water treatment, signalling, morale and cooking.
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Clearing, containment and wind consideration.
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Building through three material sizes.
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Dry, fine and high surface area.
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Birch bark, dry grass, resinous wood and fungus.
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Petroleum-soaked cotton and commercial starters.
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Simplest ignition, and their failure modes.
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Sparks at high temperature, working when wet.
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Bow drill as a concept and why it is a last resort.
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Splitting to dry wood and building a platform.
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Teepee, log cabin and lean-to for different purposes.
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Directing heat toward the shelter.
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Containment, water at hand and complete extinguishment.
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Green vegetation and rubber changing visibility against the background.
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Smoke by day and flame by night.
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Conserving battery and seeking high ground for signal.
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Heat, fuel and oxygen all required.
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Conditions in which a fire must not be lit at all.
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Combustion in an enclosed space as a lethal hazard.
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Three of anything as the recognized distress signal.
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Aiming technique and its extraordinary range.
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Sound carrying further with far less energy.
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Contrast, movement and staying in the open.
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Large, high-contrast symbols in an open area.
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Personal locator beacons and satellite messengers.
F. Navigation and lost-person protocol
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Recognizing it early, before the error compounds.
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Searchers looking where you were last known to be.
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Water, shelter or signalling requiring relocation.
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Returning to the last known position.
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Leaving a trail you and searchers can follow.
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Aligning map to terrain before deciding anything.
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Matching visible features to the map.
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Linear features that keep you on line.
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Deliberately erring to one side of a target.
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Estimating distance travelled on foot.
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East and west, and shadow movement over time.
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Establishing an east-west line from shadow tips.
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Finding north from the pointer stars.
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The southern-hemisphere equivalent.
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Moss growing by moisture, not reliably by direction.
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A heuristic with real exceptions in canyon country.
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Bail-out points identified before departure.
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Slowing down or stopping in fog and darkness.
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Keeping the party together and paced to the slowest.
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Batteries, canopy, and dependence without a backup.
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A vehicle being far easier to find than a person.
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Scale, contour lines and legend.
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Spacing indicating slope steepness.
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Bearings and following one accurately.
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The angle between magnetic and true north.
G. Environmental hazards and wildlife
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Thirty-thirty rule and the safest available shelter.
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Avoiding high ground, isolated trees and open water.
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Victims carrying no charge and needing immediate help.
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Whether to cross at all, before how.
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Unbuckling packs, facing upstream and using a pole.
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Being cut off by a rising tide.
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Loose ground, cornices and undercut banks.
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Stopping rather than continuing blind.
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Misidentification as the dominant danger.
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Slow, unreliable and useless against many toxins.
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Rising water arriving from rain miles upstream.
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Never driving or walking into moving water.
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Small depths moving a vehicle or a person.
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Swimming parallel to shore rather than against the pull.
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Widow-makers as a campsite hazard.
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Response differing by species and situation.
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Making yourself large, loud and unappealing.
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Non-threatening behavior and playing dead in a defensive attack.
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Fighting back when an attack is predatory rather than defensive.
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Keeping food and scented items away from camp.
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Running triggering pursuit in most predators.
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Effectiveness and correct deployment.
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Facing it, appearing large and never running.
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Statistically more dangerous than predators in some regions.
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Recognition and the descend-first rule.
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Watching where hands and feet go.
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Keep calm and still, remove constrictions, get help.
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Cutting, suction, ice and tourniquets all causing harm.
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Ticks and mosquitoes as the larger statistical risk.
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Prompt removal and daily inspection.
H. Home and disaster preparedness
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Water, food, light, radio, first aid and tools.
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Planning a per-person, per-day allowance.
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Shelf-stable food needing no cooking.
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Rotating supplies and checking batteries.
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Copies and small bills when systems are down.
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Text messages getting through congested networks.
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An out-of-area contact and an agreed meeting point.
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A plan that has never been rehearsed is a document.
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Two routes and a go-bag ready in advance.
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When staying is safer than leaving.
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Knowing where and how, before the emergency.
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Leave first, then call from outside; no switches or flames.
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Emergency potable water already in the house.
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Detectors, generator placement and never indoors.
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Backfeed, ventilation and refuelling.
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Keeping doors closed and the discard rule.
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Drop, cover and hold on.
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Aftershocks, gas and structural assessment.
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Lowest floor, interior room, away from windows.
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Evacuation orders, supplies and securing property.
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The deadliest hurricane hazard and why it drives evacuation.
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Going early rather than defending a structure.
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Clearing around a structure before fire season.
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Standard policies not covering flood damage.
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Watch and warning meaning different things.
I. Wilderness first aid and improvised cordage
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catastrophic bleeding, then airway and breathing, then everything that can wait
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firm, sustained pressure on the wound is the first and most effective control for external bleeding
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current guidance is to apply one high and tight for life-threatening limb bleeding, not to avoid it
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stabilise it in place; removing it releases the plug and can worsen the injury underneath
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a bowline forms a loop that will not cinch down on whatever is inside it
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a taut-line hitch holds tension and can still be slid to re-tension a line
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a square knot can capsize under an uneven or shifting pull, which is why it is not a bend
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a trucker's hitch forms a loop that acts as a pulley, so a line can be pulled far tighter than by hand
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pale, cold, clammy skin with a rapid weak pulse, which is the opposite presentation from heat illness
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a splint must immobilise above and below the break or the bone ends still move
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keep the head and neck in line with the body rather than sitting the person up
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flushing with clean water lowers infection risk; packing with soil raises it
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spreading redness, warmth, swelling and pus days later needs care, not perseverance
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cool with water, never with ice or grease, and judge severity by depth and area rather than by pain
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an intact blister roof is the best dressing available; pad around it rather than deroofing it
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steady traction with fine tweezers; heat and irritants make the tick regurgitate
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rinse with seawater or vinegar, never fresh water, which triggers more nematocysts
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