Outdoor Learning Updates and Education Resources for Teachers

Updates from the partner organisations to Education Scotland's Outdoor Learning team.

Forestry Commission Scotland – Woodland Workout

Forestry Commission Scotland is encouraging young people to feel the benefit of the Commonwealth Games with a new Woodland Workout pack. Targeted at 3-14 year olds the pack promotes opportunities for quality, fun and safe physical activity in the outdoors and includes ideas for games, physical activities and staging ‘adapted’ Commonwealth sports in the woodlands. The pack, complete with teachers’ guide, encourages young people to have fun but to also be responsible for their well-being and consider risk. As well as considering potential hazards in their activity space and taking risks with solving problems, it also allows children the chance to learn how to manage ‘failure’ through reflecting on performance to set new challenges. The Woodland Workout, with Commonwealth Games supplement has been issued to schools across Scotland and is available to download

Youthlink – The Link Magazine

The latest edition of The Link Magazine focuses on outdoor learning and highlights the huge range of Outdoor Learning experiences being delivered across the youth sector. An online edition can be viewed here.

RSPB- Nature of Scotland Awards

The Nature of Scotland Awards are now open for entries. The Nature of Scotland Awards are designed to recognise and celebrate excellence, innovation and outstanding achievement in Scottish nature conservation.

The Youth & Education Award celebrates a school or youth group who can demonstrate how they have made a real difference to the conservation and sustainability of Scotland’s wildlife and habitats.

This could be through fundraising for a conservation-related project, a school grounds development, partnership working or best practice in hands-on delivery of learning for sustainability, connecting young people to the natural world.

Sustrans – Big Street Survey

We have developed a learning and teaching resource for P6-7 and S1-3 called The Big Street Survey. It is designed to get pupils thinking and learning about their local environments, how they make them feel and how they can go about developing a manifesto for changing their streets and making them healthier and safer places.  You can view the resources here.

The resource delivers various Health and Wellbeing outcomes, Social Studies, Expressive arts, literacy and numeracy Experiences and Outcomes..

The Royal Highland Education Trust / Glachbeg Croft Centre – Maths on the Farm Career Long Professional Learning

A  FREE training session to primary practitioners which will introduce a range of maths activities that can be carried out using the farm as a background and provide information on what is on offer locally to help support farm learning. This training will take place on 22nd May at Glachbeg Croft Centre, Munlochy.

Duke of Edinburgh Award – Flag a Munro Challenge

The Flag a Munro Challenge is being organised by the Duke of Edinburgh's Award and is open to those who have signed up to complete their DofE Award. From April to June 2014 participants are invited to ‘Flag a

Munro’ to celebrate the Commonwealth Games. The project aims to connect people with our mountain heritage, encourage physical activity and recognise the significance of Scotland’s landscape. Photos taken on each climb will be used to compile a collage, a lasting piece of artwork to share the legacy of the challenge. The collage will be displayed at a special art exhibition in Glasgow this summer. For more information including how to sign-up, visit the Flag a Munro blog.

The Octavia Hill Awards

This year, the Octavia Hill Awards are looking for heroes who have helped children and young adults connect with the outdoors and wildlife – passing on their own experience, enthusiasm and love of nature. As many studies have shown, such connections with nature (even, or especially, in towns and cities) are essential for our mental, physical and emotional wellbeing.

Nominate your wild hero - examples could include:

• A teacher who makes a special effort to inspire their pupils to love and understand nature through outdoor learning.
• An individual or organisation that has fought a campaign to save outdoor space to play in.
• A conservation volunteer who gives up free time to take children and parents on field trips.
• A national organisation that promotes the importance of children’s connection with nature.
• An individual who teaches children outdoor skills, such as foraging, den-building, camping and birdwatching.

The closing date for nominations is midnight 31 May. Further information can be accessed here or here
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The Great Trossachs Forest

The Great Trossachs Forest has developed Geography, Art & Design and Biology teaching resources. Each resource pack contains a series of fact sheets, short films to compliment the subjects and suggested activities for the classroom and as part of outdoor learning. All the written information is provided in either pdfs or editable word documents so they can be tailored to suit different needs and teaching styles. The resource pack also provides useful information about bringing a class to The Great Trossachs Forest along with contact information should ranger support be required during the visit. 

Click here to access the downloadable resources

Jamie Andrew and Simon Yates speak at Perthshire's Outdoor Festival

As part of Perthshire's Outdoor Festival 2013, Jamie and Andrew and Simon Yates will deliver fascinating talks at Breadalbane Community Campus on 22nd June from 7pm.

"Mountains of Adversity" by Jamie Andrew O.B.E

Find out more about Jamie Andrew O.B.E (Opens in a new window) via his website.

Jamie Andrew O.B.E 

Jamie Andrew's story is simply one of the most gripping and profound you will encounter and it is guaranteed to leave any audience member moved, inspired and uplifted.

In January 1999, mountaineer Jamie Andrew and a climbing partner were trapped for five nights on the storm bound icy summit of a French mountain. The rescue, which was one of the most dramatic in the history of the Alps, came only hours too late to save his partner. Jamie, despite suffering hypothermia and appalling frostbite, survived. Days later all four of his hands and feet were amputated.

For many this fate would have meant the end of all hope, but not for Jamie. Since losing his hands and feet Jamie has achieved some incredible feats. He has learned to walk again, taken up skiing, run marathons and iron-man triathlons, and remarkably, returned to climb once more in the mountains that he loves so much.
Jamie's story, recounted with honesty and passion, is nothing short of incredible.

Jamie is an inspired and gifted speaker and delivers lectures, keynote addresses and after dinner speeches to a wide array of audiences. He speaks with unpretentious modesty yet manages to move and inspire his listeners across the board. Telling his story with great passion, sincerity and humour, the result is a talk which is at once gripping, inspiring and ultimately uplifting.

"The Wild Within" by Simon Yates

Find out more about Simon Yates (Opens in a new window).

Simon Yates"All mountaineers develop differently. Some go higher, some try ever-steeper faces and others specialize in a particular range or region. I am increasingly drawn to remoteness - to places where few others have trod."

In a career spanning nearly thirty years Simon Yates' climbing and travelling has taken him from Alaska in the west to Australia in the east, from the Canadian Arctic in the north to the tip of South America.
He first came to prominence as a mountaineer in 1985 after the first ascent of the West Face of Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes and the ensuing epic descent described in Joe Simpson's book 'Touching the Void' and the 2003 docu-drama of the same name.

For the last ten years Simon has climbed in some of the worlds most remote, uninhabited and inaccessible mountain ranges - his desire to visit these places complemented by an increasing appreciation of physical isolation and the commitment of climbing in such places with just a single companion.

This period has been the most productive of his mountaineering career with notable first ascents in The Cordillera Darwin in Tierra del Fuego, The Wrangell St-Elias on the Alaskan-Yukon border and in Eastern Greenland. Simon will take the audience on a journey to these remarkable places and share with them the drama, excitement and beauty of modern exploratory mountaineering.

Told in his usual understated and dry humorous style, Simon offers a rare insight into these seldom visited mountain regions, accompanied by stunning images collected on his travels.

Simon has written three books - 'Against the Wall', 'The Flame of Adventure', and 'The Wild Within', which have all been shortlisted for mountain literature prizes. He is a popular public speaker, regularly touring theatres in the UK and has spoken to outdoor, general and business audiences worldwide.

Tickets

This will take place at Breadalbane Community Campus at 7pm on the 22nd June. Prebooked tickets are £10 for adults or £6 for Under 18s and RSGS members. On the door, tickets will be priced at £12 for adults or £8 for Under 18s and RSGS members.

Tickets can be booked and paid for by telephone on 01738 472236