Lecture – As this was our first lecture, we were told about how the module would pan out.  We learned about things such as Equality vs Equity, how sometimes giving everyone the same help or materials isn’t enough.  We then went onto discussing our environment and what this meant.  Most of us suggested it was the area around us and where we live. When I looked up the definition of environment it suggested the same, “The surroundings or conditions in which a person, animal, or plant lives or operates.” . I learned that people are more likely to care about their environment if the interact with it, which is why children who spend a lot of time outdoors will be less likely to want to destroy it than others.  We discussed how people aren’t very supportive of the upkeep of their environment and the people who are, are stereotyped as  “tree huggers” or “hippies”.

Workshop 1 – In my first workshop I experienced outdoor learning first hand.  We were given multiple tasks over the period of time which linked with the topics we were doing. The first task I encountered was a leaf and bug treasure hunt like game. This task was to get my team mates and myself thinking about why there were certain leaves and bugs in or not in Ayr. Since this was a hands on experience, it was much more engaging rather than just researching things online. The second task I undertook was a sensory walk, to allow myself time to look at the detail of nature.  We found a lot of litter and even some graffiti around the uni environment, as well as a lot of smokers polluting the air and leaving their cigarettes all over the ground. Lastly, I looked at the different types lichen in the area and why it was causes. There was a reasonable amount of lichen on the trees all of different colour. This thought us that the air pollution in the area must be rather low due to the amount of lichen.

Workshop 2 – —In this workshop I learned about plants and Living things. I learned all about how plants are formed and even got the chance to dissect some flowers. In this I also found out that the leaves collect sunlight to photosynthesise and provide food for the plant as sugars. There were various other stations where you could examine snails and do other types of quizzes. I was able to go outside to examine different types of leaves by making rubbings of them and comparing.  We researched the different parts of the leaves and found out the names of them. We used a card game to distinguish between living and non living things which was a good exercise to get you thinking and would be good to use in a classroom. Overall, the different stations made to workshop more interesting and engaging.