Earlier this year you may have seen small groups of students walking Bermuda from end to end carrying cumbersome backpacks and looking like they could fall asleep at any moment.

What you witnessed was the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme of Bermuda in action.

This year, Saltus had 20 silver candidates camping from April 16 to 18. Additionally, 50 bronze awardees walked from April 23 to 24. But what would possess them to want to carry around those heavy backpacks?

The Duke of Edinburgh Award is a worldwide programme, designed to encourage the personal development of young people, regardless of gender, race or background. Over 275,000 young people from over 50 countries participate every single year, with over six million men and women having completed the programme since its inception in 1956. The award scheme is non-competitive, completely voluntary and is personalised to each individual candidate. The Duke of Edinburgh Award is divided into three sections, bronze, silver and gold, and is open to all young people between the ages of 14 and 25.

Each year, Saltus Grammar School has several dozen participants taking part in all three levels of the award, which is divided into four parts. The 'skill' section requires students to participate in an activity in which they develop personal interests and practical skills, such as learning a musical instrument or to debate. The 'service' aims to teach candidates how to give a useful service to others. This is the community service aspect, and examples of Bermudian participation include the KBB and Candystriping. The 'recreation' section requires all awardees to take part in some form of physical recreation to improve their performance and have fun whilst getting fit, such as playing football or doing gymnastics. The last part of the award is the part most often associated with it: the 'Adventurous Journey.'

The expedition is frequently cited as both the most difficult and the most rewarding part of the whole Duke of Edinburgh experience. Its aim is to develop a spirit of adventure and discovery within the participants.

The bronze expedition is made up of two days of walking plus one night of camping, with subsequent levels adding on one day and one night. Because Bermuda is such a small country, the award organisers decided that the island is not large enough and too developed to be used for the gold-level adventurous journey. As such, all gold level entrants must travel overseas to other countries (Wales and Jamaica being the most common) to complete their expedition. Each expedition also has a 'purpose', a reason why the awardees have to walk around with heavy backpacks for a whole weekend.

Group purposes include any number of different things, examples from previous Saltus groups range from finding the average number of people per car to visiting as many of Bermuda's purported 'haunted houses' as possible during the journey. This year, however, was different. All groups from Saltus this year decided to carry out the same purpose: to count the number of cell phone users driving on Bermuda's roads. This is a pertinent issue, especially with Bermuda's roads being as dangerous as they are, and we felt that it was important to make students, teenagers and the public aware of the sheer volume of distracted drivers.