PROGRAM DESIGN

The National Archery in the Schools Program® (NASP®) is a joint venture between state Departments of Education and Wildlife. Several archery equipment manufacturers and organizations are also partners. The program promotes student education, physical education and participation in life long sport of Archery. The programs focus is to provide International style target archery training in physical education classes, grades 4-12.
PROGRAM DESIGN

There are three legs comprising NASP®'s design:

1. Units of Study were written by Education, Conservation, and Target archery experts to meet state and national educational standards. This enabled NASP® to speak the language of educators who are intent on teaching core content throughout the school day. These units were designed for inclusion in a school's Physical Education curriculum but in a few NASP® schools these archery lessons are presented by history, language, art, and even Spanish teacher.

2. Teacher Training was developed so teachers in every participating school could be certified to present NASP® lessons that are safe for students, instructors, bystanders, and the facility. Teachers have a choice of being certified as NASP® Basic Archery Instructors (BAI - 8 hours) or Basic Archery Instructor Trainers (BAIT­­24 hours). To date almost 30,000 people have been certified by NASP®. During the training teachers learn how to set up and operate a safe archery range in their gymnasium. They are taught whistle signals which are used to move students to various taped lines on the range floor or

ground to 'get bows', 'shoot', and 'go get arrows'. They learn how to determine a student's 'Dominant Eye' and make a 'String Bow®' training aid to teach the 'Eleven Steps to Archery Success' ­­ archer form, shot execution, and follow-through. Teachers are provided extensive advice on how to provide positive coaching. Finally, sessions are conducted to explain inspection, maintenance and operation ofthe bows and arrows.

3. Archery Equipment used in NASP® is highly standardized to be safe, durable, economical, and most importantly, universal fit for almost every student. In NASP® learning the 'process' of shooting is stressed far more than arrow scores. The only bow used in NASP® is a 'Genesis®' compound which has no let-off and is adjustable from 10-20 pounds in draw weight at any draw length. Only full-length aluminum arrows are used in NASP® to fit every student and to preserve NASP®'s perfect safety record. Sights, release aids, and stabilizers are kept out of NASP® to facilitate equipment sharing among students in archery class. Finally, NASP® students are taught to shoot at an international, 80 centimeter target face. While students start learning at an 'always hit' distance of 5-7 yards or meters, competitive distancesin NASP® are 10 and 15 meters.

Department of Fish & Wildlife Resources Objective: Declining participation in the shooting sports threatens financial and public support for wildlife conservation. The NASP® has been successful in teaching almost 10 million students during school hours. We expect many of these young people to make Archery a life sport.

Department of Education Objective: Engage more students in the educational process to improve classroom performance and reduce dropout rates. The national school dropout rate is 10%. Most students (88%) who drop out of school indicate they were not involved in extra-curricular activities. Archery taught by the NASP® is accessible to all students of nearly all. Educators are reporting that the NASP® engages the unengaged and inspires students to greater achievement in school.

Development History:
The program began in Kentucky with the training of 39 educators on March 3-4, 2002.
March 2002 the 21-middle school pilot project began with teacher training.
1,600 students were surveyed at the conclusion of their 2-week target archery class.

A follow up survey was scheduled and the new results are avaialble.

Before the Class (55% boys and 45% girls)
o 72% did not own a bow & 62% had never shot a bow

After the Class
o 89% enjoyed the archery class
o 45% wanted to own archery equipment
o 59% wanted to become target archers & 38% wanted to try bowhunting
o 38% want to try bowhunting

Running Status:
2003 NASP® KY Championship attracted 651 student archers.
2004 NASP® Championship, held in Louisville, attracted 1,291 student archers.
2005 NASP® Championship attracted 1,702 student archers.
2006 NASP® Championship attracted 2,164 student archers.
2007 NASP® Championship attracted 1,842 student archers in the 1st Annual stand alone NASP® Nationals. It was previously held in conjunction with the Kentucky NASP® State tournament (40% were girls)
2008 NASP® Championship attracted 2,856 student archers.(39% were girls)
2009 NASP® Championship attracted 4,565 student archers 1,751 female (38.4%)
35% Elementary students
32% Middle School Students
33% High School Students
Most represented was 6th Grade Male with 525 shooters
Least represented was female 4th grade with 98 shooters
October 8th - 11th 2009 -1st Ever NASP® World event near Orlando Florida Walt Disney World Resorts - Look out Florida... here we come.
2010 NASP® Championship attracted 6,784 student archers.
2011 NASP® Championship attracted 6,731 student archers.

2011 NASP® World Tournament - over 1100 NASP® Archers
2012 NASP® National Tournament - 7,804 NASP® Archers ( Guinness Book of World Records certified this tournament as the world's largest displacing a title held by Mongolia in 2010 ) VIEW LINK
2012 NASP® World Tournaent - October 4th - 6th 2012

50 states and 30+ countries have inquired about the program. Countries include; Iraq, Japan, Spain, Finland, Netherlands, Morocco, and Barbados.
47 U.S. States & Washington D.C. have adopted the program as of July 2011. Australia, Canada New Zealand & South Africa have also joined the NASP® as well as 10,400 + schools have joined. 3 more US States have agreed to adopt the program.
We expect to add over 1,600 schools in each future year.
2010 - 2011 School year has introduced over 1.9 million 4th - 12th grade aged youth to the life sport of Archery via the NASP®.
 

2011 - 2012 School year has introduced over 2 million 4th - 12th grade aged youth to the life sport of Archery via the NASP®.
NASP has NOW exceeded 'Little League Baseball' and is 3 times the size of Lacrosse.

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