All this week we’ve been celebrating the amazing milestone of 25,000 children in Scotland starting their own wild adventure in just two years through our partnership with Aldi. For our final day of marking this we have a blog from Katie Bogie, a Schools’ Outreach Volunteer in Edinburgh for the project.
Inspiring the next generation about nature
‘We must teach our children To smell the earth, To taste the rain, To touch the wind, To see things grow, To hear the sun rise And night fall, To care.’
~ John Cleal
This poem strikes a deep chord with me and I imagine will to many others. It’s words are increasingly important today in a world where there is clear evidence that children have less contact with nature than ever before. A huge amount of research has been done in recent years reporting that children are becoming more and more disconnected with the outdoors and the wildlife in it. This has in turn sparked concern that if the children are more disengaged with the natural world, they will be less inclined to want to work to protect it in their adult lives. In times when numbers of species are declining at alarming pace, I find this deeply worrying.
I heard about the work RSPB Scotland and Aldi were doing to locally engage primary school children with nature whilst I was looking for a volunteer role. I felt in view of the above evidence, this was important work and decided to apply and help deliver the sessions to as many children as possible.
Each session starts off with a powerpoint presentation to the class. It is relaxed and the children contribute many ideas to the discussion. We initially discuss RSPB Scotland and its work, and then the class consider the importance of wildlife having habitats, food, water and ‘friends and family’ around.
We then move outside to the school’s playground, and carry out activities which vary depending on the age of the children. We might pretend to be a creature and imagine what its habitat might be, where it would be located in the playground, and why. We might assess the playground with a score sheet to see which habitats it has, and how useful they are for supporting nature. We then play a game, which is designed to demonstrate to the children, the effect declining habitats can have on wildlife. Once back inside, the children and set a challenge to create and draw, in groups, ideal habitats for various creatures.
I think the playground scorecard illustrates very clearly to the children, which habitats are valuable to have, and need to be cherished. It also clearly shows them what is missing from the playground and could be added in by the school.
The feedback is truly superb! There is such enthusiasm from the children and the teaching staff about the session and the ideas it has given them. Many want to go straight back out and create habitats both at school and home! Mentioning the RSPB ‘Wild Challenge’ at the end of the session gives them a structured means of focussing what they can do and how to do it.
Since first applying to this role I have had tremendous support in terms of training for the sessions and flexibility in the hours I do. I have also been offered great opportunities to attend conservation and wildlife courses. I am thoroughly enjoying volunteering with RSPB Scotland!
I am regularly taken aback at how much children can learn within the hour and a half session. They can go from perhaps not knowing, or even caring, what a woodlouse is, to being fully aware of the importance of ‘Giving Nature a Home’ and being enthused and inspired to create habitats for a variety of creatures. It is a wonderful progression to watch and feels a privilege. To hear them at the end chatting about protecting worms, making ponds, not cutting down hedgerows, or creating a ginormous insect hotel in the gran’s back garden is wonderful!
I feel the session’s success is down to actually taking the children out of the indoor classroom and into the playground. When they go outside and are seeing and thinking about their environment, a lot if the enthusiasm builds, the small discussions start, the ideas grow and I truly hope the beginning of a longstanding ‘connection’ to nature is made.
If you missed the other celebratory blogs from this week you can catch up with them by clicking on the following:
Kevin’s blog
Craig’s blog
Rowan’s blog
Sally’s blog
To find out more about the project visit: www.rspb.org.uk/aldi
More on the amazing milestone can be found here.