Seikkailukasvatus ja luontoelämyksiä

The other day I managed to do a real challenge. I told about Outdoor Education and nature experiences in Finnish. The reason was my Master´s Degree, and I had to show that I can talk about my profession in Finnish. And fine it went!

I have thought that reading about indians in the Rocky Mountains and the adventures of Enid Blyton´s children has been a reason for my interest in foreign nature. But now I thought: Maybe I read these book because of my interest? I don´t know the answer!

3.6.2013 Monday with Robbie

..and theory linked to reality is not boring!
1. Experiental knowing - can be good, but we don´t want our pilot to learn by experiental learning...
2. Presentational knowing - this we did!
3. Propositional learning - secondary knowing and learning. Someone else, a book for example,  tolds you something new.
4. Practical knowing - doing things that make a difference. How do we begin to act sustainably on our planet?

3.6.2013 The four spheres

How do you as a crossbill, an ant, a mussel or a woolly willow connect with the four spheres?

 (the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the litosphere and the biosphere)

 Sanna needs an aspen.

Yvonne the mussel cleans the water.
But she needs salmon as hosts for her juvenils. There´s no salmon here,
so she can´t live for  a long time any more.
Life is hard for the woolly-willow-Helén, too.





Anna-Karin the ant.

4.6.2013 The four elements

Dave gave every group four jars with different contents: soil, water, nothing, and a little lamp. These jars gave us the four elements. I was thinking of photosyntesis, but our greek friends knew a lot of greek philosophy. Maybe we should read more about that in our schools, too?

The greek philosopher Empedocles claims that there are four elements in the universe; air, fire, earth, and water.

But the four elements are never the same. We never experience the same soil twice, nor the air, water and fire. It feels a little sad. If we come back to river Spey it is never the SAME river Spey: The water is new, the air... and the situation is new. I understood the four elements like this, tell me if I am wrong...

4.6.2013 The nature gives us fairy tales

 Gaia, Maria Rosa and the tree Yggdrasil

A dragon, Sanna, lived in a place with only lichens and mosses. Once upon a time he flew away because he wanted to find some food. Far, far away on the other side of the sea he found a very nutricious island. He enjoyed the berries and other food on that green island, but nevertheless he was homesick. One day he decided to go home. But - some bluberries were stuck in one of his claws and when he came home they fell othe ground and started to grow. After that the dragon could enjoy blueberries on his island.Yvonne and Terezia helped the dragon.

The holly inspired this group: 

Here we can see the newborn Christ (Gints) with his parents Mary and Joseph (Ann and Helen). Margrit is the star of Bethlehem.

4.6.2013 The running Memory

The running memory got us used to maps. But I think we could do it in teaching mathematics - one card "3 x 4", and the other "12" , in languages "skog" and "forest" and in biology a picture of a blackbird/koltrast and a card with the word "blackbird". 

This was useful!

5.6.2013 Wednesday paddling down river Spey

Thank you, Dave Fowler, "Spirit of the Spey"  and Mattias Claësson, for these photos from the paddling!
We started in Kingussie and pulled up in loch Insh, a distance of 11 kilometers.

The break together with the cows was a childhood memory for me: We learnt to swim in our little river/creek - in a cow pasture...

And yes, paddling IS hard work...

A fascinating landscape.

Another dear childhood memory: the flutes of the curlews in the background.

The sand martins (backsvalor) live in the river bank.

To the left: Fia & Yvonne

5-6.6.2013 Wednesday evening and Thursday with Peter Higgins

Peter Higgins shared many thoughts with us during his lectures. What I remember most is this: 
"Why am I (as a teacher) doing this
activity with these kids here, now?"


Education is a social process. Education is
growth. Education is not a preparation for
life; education is life itself.
John Dewey

Some problems are so complex that you have to be
highly intelligent and well informed just to be
undecided about them. - Peter Higgins

6.6.2013 Butterflies and their food plants

The cards show different butterflies, and other cards of their food plants are spread around in the surrounding. A bucket of water is "the nectar source" and some dried seeds are the eggs to be laid on the food plant card. Maybe you can find real plants for example nettles for the  Small Tortoiseshell (right? nässelfjäril). Small plastic containers with small holes hold the "nectar" (some water). The participiants take a card, seed and container and try to find the right food plant. They can come back and refill the container with new water, but if they run out of water - they die.When they have found the food source and deposited their egg (the seed) they can come back.
Later in the game weed-killer is introduced and destroys the food plant =  habitat loss.
Endangered species cards are added - but there´s no food plant cards for these species! = habitat loss

WHY are we doing this?
* Biodiversity, Inter-relationships, Community, Cycles, Human impact on ecosystems

Thank you Peter for this!

6.6.2013 Food Web

 

Grab someone whom you want to eat! Fia the seal could grab a herring or a squid, but a killer whale could take the seal.

At the end: All the organisms are linked to each other.

6.6.2013 I am a plant

I am a plant. HELP!

I´m quite sure that this shows us how Petter is avoiding to be eaten by
Mattias, the carnivorous plant

Through drama we showed how plants can get water, food and protection and how they can reproduce and avoid being eaten.

The challenge in our group was "How to get food". Yvonne the sun, Sofia the water and Helen the CO2 could help Sanna the plant to make food/sugar...

After that we could build the photosyntesis formula. Depending on the age of the children we can do more or less difficult.

Peter wanted us to be suspicious över everything.