Pupils LEAF into the Countryside

Hollingworth Lake

The Rochdale Education for Sustainability Network have organised the LEAF, (Local Environment Action Fortnight), so that hundreds of children can enjoy fascinating activities in Rochdale Borough's great outdoors over the two-week period. This enjoyable and educational event takes place between 18 September and 3 October, including activities that provide pupils with exciting hands-on experiences, many at countryside locations.

The children will learn about water, energy, travel, nature, habitat and litter, and over the fortnight there will be 56 schools taking place at the nine different venues across the borough, with 20 of these being local primary schools.

All the topics of events are linked to the school curriculum. One topic, 'The Wonderful World Of Water', gives children the chance to explore a watercourse and learn to recognise how the features in the landscape show how the water is forming on the course of the river. They will perform hands on tasks of drawing, measuring and sampling, associating this to the concepts of fair tests and representative sampling techniques.

This will be held at all the four venues that are being used over the fortnight, Queens Park Heywood, Hollingworth Lake Visitor Centre, Hopwood Woods and Healey Dell, all outdoor spots that are perfect to learn out of the classroom.

Also exploring the great outdoors is the arts and nature course, where pupils explore a woodland space to collect natural minerals for use in making artwork. This is a very useful event linking back to the schools' geography curriculum, as are the remaining two events , 'Life of Trees' and 'Picnic In The Woods'. These also have the advantage of woodland walks, identifying types of trees by bark, buds and leaves, as well as examining the wildlife habitat.

This is undoubtedly a very exciting two-weeks for the large number of local schools involved, and organising the project has also brought together members of the RESN. Many RESN members already work independently to offer support to schools on certain subject areas, but the Local Environment Action Fortnight provides them with the opportunity to work in partnership.