"I see my role in providing opportunities for outdoor learning taking place through a variety of adventurous challenges and outdoor activities such as hiking, group games,building bivouacs, spending solo time in nature, gardening, conservation work, building, making fire with flint and stone and gaining further survival skills."
Human Ecology
Human ecology looks deeply at our engagement with the more-than-human world and its impact on our lives. While conventional subjects are preparing students in many ways for the world as it was in the 20th century, Human Ecology seeks to bring the critical issues of the present into focus.
Human Ecology is a course designed for our increasingly urbanized and computerized world in which many children have what is termed a ‘nature deficit disorder’. Virtual experience of nature cannot be substituted for authentic experience, even if it is a David Attenborough documentary. For students to learn to appreciate and care for the natural world they have to have direct contact with it. A ‘place-based’ education as part of the Human Ecology Program brings awareness to what is around us – ‘nearby nature’ - and takes us into the rich experience of our sensory world and its interconnectedness. ‘Place-based’ education is a study of the relationships between people, other non-human species and the places where they live. There are three aspects on “place based” education that we are focussing on which are exploring the wild nature around our school and the practise of gardening and conservation work. Such teaching can relate the global to the local with close to home examples. Looking into Global Environmental issues in relationship to exploring natural cycles (e.g. the nutrient cycle in the soil or the resource cycle in the economy) and looking into blue economy as a concept of closing natural cycles again is another part of the Human Ecology Program. The intention here is to offer experiences that help the student to gain an understanding of and to see the necessity for caring for this planet with its limited resources. Human Ecology gives an opportunity to look into how personal interests and potentials of students can connect to a larger picture. How can young people develop their potentials, while taking into consideration both, the local and the global ecology, as well as the impact on future generations. These questions are primarily addressed to the older students, who are going to leave school and enter society as adults. The Human Ecology Program is split into three major areas, which are Gardening, Grounds/ Conservation Work and Plantation. For acute nature concerning political issues, Human Ecology is also a place to give space for this to be explored. Therefore this year we were running a Mock United Nation to explore the various implications of political decision making just before the Climate conference in Paris. |
„Mit meiner Arbeit möchte ich Räume schaffen, in dem gemeinsam Potenziale entdeckt, gesehen und entwickelt werden. Das Erleben und Arbeiten mit und in der Natur ist hierbei für mich die optimale Ergänzung zur künstlerischen Auseinandersetzung auf der Bühne. In der Natur so lange einfach sein bis wir sehen, wer wir sind und was wir wirklich brauchen um ganz Mensch zu sein, darum geht es mir in der Erlebnispädagogik.“
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