Outdoor Learning in the the Outer Hebrides
The work of the Outdoor Learning Team in the Outer Hebrides; Helping soften the classroom walls and to developing Learning for Sustainability
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.
Tim and Andrew headed to Daliburgh School to run some kayaking sessions. There is a loch next to the school and they are looking at how they can make the best use of it as part of their learning. To see how kayaking could be run on the Loch it was decided to run short sessions for young people across the school.
Although it wasn’t the best weather with the rain the wind stayed away and everyone had a great experience. There was then discussion how they travel forwards and make more use of the Loch.
Tim went into Laxdale School and did a day of fire and camp cooking for a variety of classes from the school. We cooked bannocks and roasted fruit kebabs, polishing off the boxes of fruit Tim had brought.
At this time of year with the good weather is when the outdoor team are in demand. Tim was in Tong School to do the Bronze Youth Navigator Award.
The session started with some time in classroom (it can be done outside but needs good weather otherwise the paper disintegrates) the young people created an ‘island’ on the classroom floor using a rope as the shore and then populated it with buildings and features. They then drew their own map of the island. This give the opportunity to talk about scale, how to denote features with symbols and the importance of the key.
This lead to talking about how important it is to orientate the map and touching on North, South, East and West.
The class were then given a map of the school grounds where Tim had already set out twenty orienteering clippers. With a score card, a map and a quick refresher on orientating the map outside the class set off to navigate around the course around the school.
At the end of the session there was a recap of the essential point of orientating the map and the whole class had completed their Bronze award.
On the 20th February, before the evenings got too long, Mrs Mackinnon and her P1-4 class from Sir E Scott Primary came out for a night walk with Isi. They had been reading The Owl Who Was Afraid Of The Dark as the basis for their project for the term, and wanted to experience the darkness for themselves – away from lights and buildings. We walked from the playground area in the Aline woodlands, down to the shores of Loch Seaforth and back again – a long way for little legs!
It was a very cold but calm evening, and the sun had just set as we left the carpark. We found lots of interesting things to talk about on the way, and the children especially liked seeing the snow on the Cliseam and other hills being lit up by the sunset. We spent a few minutes being very quiet to see what we could hear. We didn’t find any owls, but they were all surprised at just how quiet it was. When we got to the picnic bench by the loch, Isi gave everyone hot chocolate or juice, and a biscuit to keep them going for the return leg.
We looked out across the loch, which was very calm and looked like glass. On the way back, we turned off our torches and spent some time looking at the stars. We managed to find the Plough, Cassiopeia, Orion’s Belt, and some pictures the children made up themselves. Isi also had to remember some of her physics from school on the rest of the walk as the children had lots of questions about everything from the moon to black holes!
There were lots of smiling faces when we got back, although I suspect that they all slept well that night.
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.
As autumn has turned Stornoway Playgroup wanted to go and explore the Castle Grounds again. The story of our first journey can be seen here.
The journey this time took us up passed the water wheel over the golf course, with the great view of the town, into the broad leaf woodland, towards the college and the Caste where we found some shelters another group had been building. Then back past the Castle under the horse chestnut trees (Aesculus hippocastanum) to look for conkers. Finishing upstairs in the Sawmill café for a snack and a drink, which is always a treat.
Although the conkers they found were small they were perfect for little hands. The different berries and fruits on the trees and bushes allowed us to talk about how the plants were able to spread their fruit and get other trees to grow, to touch on how things in nature are interconnected. We found and tasted blackberries and played with sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) ‘helicopters’.
The next trip the Playgroup are going to take into the Grounds is to the water wheel building, when they are going to walk out and use the space as a place to ‘story time’ before walking back.
