explore · Systems Thinking, Visioning, Reflection · 90–240 min · 4-40 people · medium energy
Deep Time Walk
The group walks 4.6 km, where each metre stands for a million years of Earth's history. A facilitator or the app tells the story along the way: the planet forming, the first cells, mass extinctions, and humans arriving only in the last 20 centimetres. The walk ends with a conversation about what that scale means for the choices the group faces.
When to use Deep Time Walk
Use on a long-horizon strategy or sustainability offsite when the group keeps thinking in quarters and needs a felt sense of how recent and how fast our impact is.
What it solves
Teams talk about 'the long term' while planning three years ahead, and climate facts stay numbers on a slide.
How to run Deep Time Walk, step by step
- Choose a route of about 4.6 km, or a loop, and mark key moments in Earth's history along it (prep).
- Brief the group: the scale, the pace, and that the walk is a story, not a lecture (5 min).
- Walk, stopping at stations where the facilitator or app tells what happened at that point (2-3 hours).
- Slow down for the last metres and measure out the span of human history with a tape or your fingers (10 min).
- Sit together and ask: what does this change in how we see our work and our timelines? (20-30 min)
Materials needed
- Deep Time Walk app or the script
- A 4.6 km route
- A measuring tape for the final metres
- Water and rain gear
Facilitator tips
- Check the route for accessibility and toilets; a 4.6 km walk is easy for many but not for everyone.
- A shorter version scales the story down (for example 460 m), but the closing conversation still matters.
- Facilitator training is available through the Deep Time Walk community if you want to run it often.
Common pitfalls
- Treating it as a geology lesson and skipping the reflection at the end.
- Walking too fast, so the human part at the end loses its weight.
Variations
- Deep Time Cards: 58 illustrated cards for running a short indoor version.
Running it online or hybrid
People in different places can each walk with the app and meet online afterwards for the conversation.
What it produces
A shared reference point for long-term thinking, plus notes from the closing conversation about what the group will do differently.
Origin
Co-created in 2007 by Dr Stephan Harding with geologist Sergio Maraschin. A trained facilitator community and a GPS-paced app now carry it worldwide. — source
Build a session around Deep Time Walk
METODIC places Deep Time Walk inside a complete, timed session plan — agenda, worksheets, facilitator guide and slides — matched to your group and goal.