Monday 20 October 2008

Preston kids made in to nature lovers

Who says you can’t learn during the holidays? This half-term holiday The Environment Education Centre in Penwortham is trying to make Preston kids “nature lovers”, as Su Buck of the Education Centre states.

There are multiple activities and theme related days. The ‘eco-days’ this year are all about Vikings. Children will learn about ancient woods and taught how real Vikings lived. Seems like a good way of spending the holiday, but how does this help the kids being more green?

”The idea of the eco-days is to provide outdoor learning and fun to as many children as possible. Our aim is to enable, facilitate and hopefully inspire children to look after the natural world”, says Buck.

That’s still only being outside and playing. But don’t they have to learn about environmental stuff like recycling, the importance of nature and sustainability? Buck thinks not.

We don’t preach or even try to teach something like ‘this is the name of’, but rather allow the children to become nature lovers by having a great time outdoors and learning to respect the nature threw play.”

From feedback the centre got from parents and schools they understand that very little children have the opportunity to play and learn outdoors. A question that pops to mind after this statement could be: isn’t it quite useless to give these children a nature holiday once, instead of trying to change their ‘not going outside’ habit over a long period of time?

Buck explains: “This isn’t a one time thing, we always try the do this kind of stuff. But for us it’s hard to intervene in the life of the children. Schools for example have a job to do their, of which I know they are conscious and working on.”

Tell me what do you think. Are these activities of any use? Do schools need to do more and what? And what would YOU like to ask to the one you think should to more about kids turning green?

3 comments:

Rieneke Kok said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Rieneke Kok said...

Some spelling slipups but other than that I'd say this little piece of work is pretty good - citations, flow, buildup.
I'm not gonna responds to your question though: hate kids, hate nature, don't recycle. "Na mij de zondvloed", as I say.

Check out:
http://wsu.edu/~brians/errors/into.html

(I deleted the previous comment due to my own little slipups...:))

colinvanhoek said...

Thanks for the tip! I know my English is far away from being perfect.. Hope to improve before I leave!