School, but in nature!

School In Nature this year was themed around ‚space‘. You might not think that this is an easy topic to study in a forest up a mountain, but we managed to have a lot of fun with it!

Unfortunately, the planets Mars, Venus and Saturn became visible about 5 minutes before they slipped below the horizon and the Moon never rose above the trees, yet with some careful improvisation, we managed to tour the Solar System!

We modeled a Solar System on the scale of a 1 metre diameter Sun and walked over 3 kilometres out to the orbit of Neptune, where we found a handy restaurant, had an ice cream and walked 3 kilometres back to the ‚Sun‘.

There were races between planets on smaller scaled Solar Systems, a day spent considering the problems involved in travelling to and colonising Mars and rocket science with bottles, water, a bike pump and a plastic tube for a launcher.

As well as looking up and out into space, we reflected that our planet is our spaceship and we haven’t got another one. The children spent a lot of time learning about how the delicate balance of nature recycles everything into resources for life on Earth.

For more details of each day’s activities, you can take a look at our Facebook albums for Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4 and Day 5, or just enjoy the gallery below!