

They will demonstrate a variety of skills on land, including their pre-dive buddy checks, assembly and disassembly of their equipment, putting on and adjusting their equipment, and inflating and deflating their BCDs. Students in the Open Water course must demonstrate much more than the ability to breathe underwater. Then they must complete a 200 meter/yard continuous surface-swim with no gear on or a 300 meter/yard surface swim using mask, fins and snorkel. The other big requirement to begin the course is that students must demonstrate that they can complete a 10-minute swim/float without any swim aids in water too deep to stand. Remember, this is the same book that you and I learned from. Once they start their classroom training, students will take a variety of quizzes, as well as a final exam that covers all the material in the textbook. He or she must complete the knowledge reviews in each chapter.

Before the classroom and pool time, the student must read the PADI Open Water course textbook.

The course will require a lot of reading, knowledge and skills mastery. The PADI Junior Open Water courseĪs I already mentioned, this is big. If they’re ready, look for a program that offers a 2-to-1 or 1-to-1 ratio of student to instructor so that your child can learn at his own pace.īelow are the course requirements and some tips from PADI IDC Staff Instructor Sheila Shelton of Texan Scuba if your child is ready to be an open-water diver. It’s vital to really consider your child’s readiness for this course. It features the same book, same knowledge mastery and skill mastery requirements.

It is, in fact, the same course that the adults take. The most important thing to note about this course is that it’s a big jump from the Bubblemaker, Seal Team, and Discover Scuba Diving programs. Here, we’ll cover the PADI Junior Open Water Program, available to kids 10 and older. If your child is 10 or older and has shown interest in diving, the Discover Scuba Diving program may help them, and you, decide if they’re ready to pursue diving more seriously. In the first two of our series on kids’ diving courses, we covered Bubblemaker and Seal Team, wherein participants must be at least eight years old.
