FOR THE KIDS : Teaching Wilderness Survival and Safety : Important lessons include those on what to do if children become lost and on dangerous plants and animals.

Maybe your child knows about the perils of urban living, but what about the threats that lurk in the wilderness?

As summer approaches, kids will be hiking and camping in wilderness areas--some of them for the first time. Eager to romp in the woods, they may not be tuned in to the dangers out there, including poison oak, rattlesnakes, and now, even mountain lions.

You can prepare your children for the wilds by signing them up for a wilderness survival class this spring. A class on orienteering will teach kids how to use a map and compass. Parents might pick up some tips too.

Eileen Baker, a naturalist for Ventura’s recreation department, teaches two wilderness survival classes--one for kids 3 to 6, and another for older kids, 7 to 11.

She makes it fun so children feel comfortable outside. She starts by hauling out her collection of puppets, including a bear, snake and a little mountain lion.

“We talk about what animals they have to be careful about,” Baker said. This includes not only the rattlesnake, but the black widow spider, the brown recluse spider and even bees.

In a playful setting in Arroyo Verde Park, she gives kids a slew of tips: Bees are attracted to bright clothing so wear something boring like white, never hike alone, always stay on the trail and never touch any animals.

“Even baby animals can bite,” she tells them. If bitten by a rattlesnake, they should walk calmly for help, she advises, while keeping the bite in a position below the heart. And if you run into a mountain lion? Make yourself appear as tall as possible and scream your head off.

Baker takes the class on a trail in the park. They look for animal tracks and learn to spot poison oak and itchy nettle. If they should get lost, she tells them, stay put so that rescuers will have an easier time finding them.

She even shows them how to create drinking water if they become lost: make a simple solar still made by digging a hole and trapping evaporated water from the earth between two layers of plastic.

For spending the night in the wilderness, she shows them how to make a shelter with sticks and how to stay warm. She also suggests items to put in a backpack, including a whistle and trash bags, which can be used as makeshift ponchos.

Baker’s class for younger children will be held Wednesday , from 12:30 to 2 p.m. The session for older kids follows from 3 to 4:30 p.m. (They’ll run again in May.) Both cost $5, require a parent to be present and registration.

The Wilderness Institute in Agoura Hills also offers survival classes. The next one is scheduled for May 13, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, and covers such things as rescue techniques, signaling for help, making a fire without matches and finding water, shelter and food. It costs $38. (Kids under 14 must be accompanied by an adult.)

For a different spin on wilderness survival, Jim Lux teaches a class on orienteering through the Conejo Recreation and Park District for kids 10 and older and for adults.

“It’s about not getting lost, keeping track of where you are,” said Lux, who has taught the class for a year.

In a series of four Saturday sessions, he shows participants how to use a topographic map and a compass. “Magnetic north and the true North Pole are not in the same place,” he said.

The class meets in Conejo Creek Park behind the Thousand Oaks Library. Lux uses 18 acres of the park each week to lay out a course that students must follow using navigational skills.

Orienteering is a grueling, popular competitive sport in places like Scandinavia. But in Lux’s class, the competitive angle of navigating the course is quickly downplayed. During the last class, though, he sets up a short competitive course.

The sessions deal with some practical tips on staying “un-lost,” as Lux puts it, such as other ways of finding north and how to travel in a straight line.

The class runs on Saturdays from April 22 through May 13, from 3 to 5 p.m. The cost is $12 and requires registration.

Details

* WHAT: Wilderness survival classes.

* FYI: Recommended for families: “Improve Your Survival Skills,” an Usborne Superskills paperback by Lucy Smith, $5.95.

* CALL: City of Ventura, recreation department, 658-4726; Conejo Recreation and Park District, outdoor unit, 494-8301; Wilderness Institute, (818) 991-7327.