Outdoor Learning in the the Outer Hebrides
The work of the Outdoor Learning Team in the Outer Hebrides; developing Learning for Sustainability and helping soften the classroom walls
For the last few years the Outdoor Team have worked with the Scaladale Centre to deliver RYA Youth Sailing Scheme Stage 1 and 2 in Harris so this year with the new marina facilities it ran in Tarbert. The new pontoons in East Loch Tarbert Marina made it very easy to run and the facilities are excellent.
In July the CnES Sailing school ran a week of sailing in Stornoway to get the young people to RYA Stage 1 and 2 of the Youth Sailing Scheme. The weather was very favourable with a lovely breeze and sunshine. All the young people achieved the awards.
Tim was asked by Tong School to show them how they could use the moorland, a short walk from the school, to look at the fauna and flora they could find there.
The class wrote their own journey plan to get out to the moor and they organised the class to get there. When they arrived at the moor using the Outdoor Team’s environmental box they researched the plants and invertebrates they found documenting them with photographs and drawings.
We are in the middle of the busy season, with the team out and about working with schools and young people in the outdoors. There are often questions about ticks and Lymes disease, we thought it would be useful to post some information about what to do if you are bitten by a tick and things you can do to prevent being bitten.
It is important ticks should not stop you going outside but to take a few sensible precautions to prevent being bitten and if you are, what to do about it.
Lymes disease if carried by ticks which latch on and then take a blood meal. The Comhairle have produced a leaflet with information on the disease (CnES Tick leaflet). More information can be found on the Lymes Disease Action web site.
There is an excellent YouTube video produced by NHS highland on how to remove a tick with Dr James Douglas
There is also good advice from the NHS Scotland web site:
Ticks are small spider-like creatures that can be found on bushes and undergrowth in Scotland’s countryside, parks and gardens from spring through summer and well into autumn. Most ticks that bite people are unlikely to be carrying the germ that causes Lyme disease, but there’s no way of knowing at the time. So, it is best to:
You can reduce your chances of being bitten by ticks by:
Just before Christmas we were lucky to have a member of the National Navigation Awards team come to Harris to deliver a train the trainer course for us, Dorothy Breckenridge from C-n-Do Scotland was visiting Harris and offered to provide the course. Adam Johnson from Sir E Scott School in Tarbert joined us.
The National Navigation Award Scheme is a great way to introduce people to the skills of navigation in a non threatening way. It takes a stepped approached to navigation pioneered by Nigel Williams of Glenmore Lodge. By breaking the training down into easy manageable stages which can be easily related to the real world is a key component.
It is not a leading award but a recognition of your ability to navigate and there are three different levels bronze, silver and gold.
If you would like us to come and do some training with you so you can deliver the award in a school or group we would be very happy to do this just contact Isi or Tim.
In our quest to share the resources we receive, we received an e-mail from Learning for Sustainability Scotland and the fully funded courses in Learning for Sustainability (LfS) they are offering.
The courses are being run by the British Council, University of Edinburgh and Learning for Sustainability Scotland and they are accredited by the General Teaching Council of Scotland (GTCS) and Scottish College for Educational Leadership.
They are offering a great opportunity to consider the difficulties of what Learning for Sustainability means and how do you integrate it into your practice.
Opportunity to study Learning for Sustainability
To look into the background of this the University web site and the Learning for Sustainability Scotland sites are both excellent resources.
If you are struggling for time, Tim can to come to schools and deliver twilight sessions on LfS as it is part of his Masters Degree.
Various resources arrive in our in-tray, here in our hidden office, some of them we think are worth sharing. So occasionally we will put up short posts on things we think are worth a look at.
We received an email from the John Muir Trust about their Literacy and Nature Resource Guide. It is a file with some good links out to other sites and files, what we think useful to teaching staff here in the Outer Hebrides, is the John Muir Award and the CfE document which has details of how the John Muir Award can be linked to the Curriculum for Excellence.
There is their promotional film explaining the Trust and the Award:
If you would like to use the John Muir Award please contact the Isi or Tim and we can help you to set it up and deliver it.
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