How outdoor learning fosters eco-consciousness.
Outdoor learning is not just outdoor learning, it has multiple offshoots. Sustainability education, conservation education, environmental education, nature based learning, teaching environmental awareness, and Eco-conscious education, can all inspire acts of environmental stewardship in the younger generations. Through learning about environmental responsibility, children can form habits, grow out their green thumbs, and cultivate principles that shape them into planetary guardians that will fight for the survival and flourishing of local communities and hubs for all things natural. The Anderton Centre is an outdoor classroom covered in green learning spaces where gaps of knowledge are filled in with leaves and magic.
Soaring temperatures, rising sea levels, atypical natural phenomena. No matter how hard you may try to push back the thoughts of a world set aflame, the collective impending sense of dread is always there in the back of our collective consciousness.
Many of us feel torn—we worry about climate change, but life keeps moving. This inner conflict makes us feel stuck and unsure of what to do next. It makes us feel paralysed, uncertain about not just how to make the world a better place right now, but how to make the world a better place in a future that is creeping ever closer.
This is a future that is not just breathing down our necks at the current moment, but it is a future that looms over the heads of the generations who will be facing the worst of humanity’s inaction on the earth’s welfare.
A study from Save The Children UK of 3,000 children aged 12 to 18 revealed that:
- 70% are worried about the world they will inherit due to climate change.
- 60% believe that climate change and inequality are affecting their generation’s mental health in the UK.
Let that sink in: in a class of 30 children, 21 of them are experiencing climate anxiety as you read this blogpost.
Children don’t need us to teach them about the dire situation that they will be at the forefront of, but they do need help in knowing what can be done and how. A tender relationship with the earth and how to sustain created a stable foundation for coexistence for thousands of years. The cost of human progression has sadly come at the expense of disproportionate plundering of resources, depletion of natural areas, the most current mass extinction of our animal friends, and even ourselves. There is no pleasant way to frame an inconvenient truth, we simply have to face the facts and do the best we can to preserve what we have left, restore what we can, and prevent worst-case scenarios.
As an Outdoor Centre, our survival depends on the wellbeing of the climate. Without water and trees, then you can throw your helmets and paddles in the bin (although we hope you would recycle). As the gateway into the outdoors for many, it is also our responsibility to cultivate the next generation of Greta Thunbergs. Let’s dive in and see how we can do this.
Greener than life with Forest Schools: Hands-On Outdoor Learning & Environmental Education for Children
Forest Schools is a nature-based curriculum that takes place in green spaces. You may have memories of primary school of going outside on a sunny day, forest schools take those memories to the next level. Forest Schools provide hands-on environmental education that teaches what cannot be taught in the confines of the classroom. Teaching environmental awareness through starting campfires and building shelters can help with sustainability education. Every good instructor will tell you about the impact that each of their activities could have on their environment, and one of our most important learning outcomes for outdoor learning is knowing that carelessness around fire can destroy acres of land, as we have unfortunately seen in Rivington over the years. Likewise, putting the equipment away that we use, plastic mixing bowls being used in bushcraft would take years to decompose, leaving nasty microplastics along the way.
Lead the way with turning one’s trash into another’s treasure with unique arts and crafts that use what you would otherwise throw away. Bottles, tubs, and cardboard boxes all make the perfect materials to meld nature with the man-made.
Excited? It’s hard not to be about forest schools. You can learn more about Forest Schools on the official website: https://www.forestschoolassociation.org/
You can also keep up to date with environmental initiatives by Natural England, you can do so here: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/natural-england
How does the Centre practice what it preaches? Read and find out: https://andertoncentre.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/AC-Environmental-Sustainabilty_.pdf
Not just for kids, learn about the art trail made by the extremely University of Greater Manchester students here:
