Children into Nature

The ‘Children into Nature’ project is about outdoor nature and environment education designed for children. It is located in Calder community, and serving for five schools near Union Canal (Sighthill Primary School, Canal view Primary School, Calderglen Nursery School, Murrayburn Primary School, Wester Hailes Education Centre).

Schools are distributed densely in the western part of the canal (calder and sighthill community), where also has many children’s centers. Most of schools just have traditional indoor education, only a few outdoor learning activities, and it always take place in distant places. From the research of Mannion, some pupils in primary and secondary schools in Edinburgh even do not have outdoor learning , and the average for outdoor learning they did was 13 minutes per week. Schools lack a local outdoor education area，children do not have enough opportunities to get into nature. The union canal is a useful educational resources with sufficient biological resources, but it does not play its educational value in this area. 

After research, I found that the education and economic level of Wester Hailes area are relatively backward compared with estern part of the canal, and the crime rate is high. It is the least busy area along the canal. It is far from the city center and there is nothing to attract people, people are reluctant to get in touch with the canal in this area. There are two planting gardens in Calder community before. The one is community garden with general vegetables and fruits which was operated for people who could not find jobs. The other one is season clock with planting for herbal medicine. But both of them are in a bad condition at the moment.

So I came up with the idea of regenerating the community garden in Calder community, creating a nature and environment education base to serve the surrounding five schools based on the planting resources of the community garden and the biological resources of the canal. At the same time, making a connection with the community garden, the canal and the surrounding five schools.

This project aims to embrace the innate curiosity of children, strengthen their awareness of environmental protection and instill a mindset of sustainability for them. At the same time, become a revitalize of calder and sighthill area.

From large scale, firstly, the five schools will have a knowledge sharing flows centered on the nature education base. Secondly, the food production selling from here will made profit for community. Finally, the nature and environment education base will provide work opportunities for people.

From small scale, it will consist of farm gardens for agriculture education and an indoor environmental education center, which could ensure children to learn from nature in any weather. It will provide both outdoor and indoor education and activities for children. In outdoor farm garden, children can learn the planting process from sowing to harvesting. They can also be free to construct and destruct their own play spaces from natural materials, or make some craft from natural materials. The indoor education center will give children a place for cooking education, and also have some learning activities like farm lab, handcraft workshop.