Tasks
At first, the students’ task was to tell the other participants about their school. Then, students in both countries made a video about their schools. Finally, we also assigned them the task of preparing to tell about themselves in small groups via the Teams connection.
One task was to observe changes in nature in the surroundings of their school. We asked the pupils to find simple ways to observe the surroundings. In addition, the students asked experts questions about nature, mainly forests.
The students gathered information about different tree species and focused on the different shapes of the spruce. They also studied the effects of natural disasters (storms, floods, drought, etc.) on the change in local nature.
The researchers involved in the project also gave suggestions for preparing the assignments. Here is a memo on the researchers’ proposals:
Ideas presented in workshop 1.12.2021
*Tree species kids would like to see in the forests of the future (using for regeneration of damaged forests by large scale disturbances)
*My idea was simply to get kids interested in climate change. Slovenia is south, Finland is north – could Finland’s forests ever become the same as Slovenian? >> ask scientists, is that possible? What would have to happen to stop it? What would it mean to have many more species of trees in the forest? What would a forest walk be like then? a… and so on …
*It could be interesting also to work with the idea of uncertainty
*it would be nice if the Slovenian children and teachers could show something about the disaster effects of climate change in the Slovenian Forests
*Things will change, but it is not straightforward to know how. I often worry about which kind of world my kids will need to adapt too… they are so used to a particular way of living…
*Spring phenology (bud burst and flowering) would be nice and rather easy to observe for children/ I agree with spring observing, is very interesting for children. Real time growth monitoring/spruce provenances at Luke’s research park (open field research station data)