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Plants and trees |
Bushcraft |
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Visit a museum which shows artifacts from the local area and invite the children to tell stories about how they think it may have been used. |
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Plants and trees |
Bushcraft |
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Use a potato peeler to remove the bark of a green stick, e.g. to make dough sticks on the campfire. |
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Plants and trees |
Bushcraft |
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Craft with clay that you find (e.g. by a river) e.g. Blobsters (see Chris Holland's book I love my world). |
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Our human family |
Careers and work in permaculture |
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Imagine creating a house and garden that takes care of the Earth, people and creates abundance to share with neighbors and other creatures; draw your vision and discuss how it makes you feel |
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Our human family |
Careers and work in permaculture |
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See different types of work in the community that relate to permaculture - whether teachers, gardeners, charitable workers, farm workers, etc. |
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Growing food |
Caring for soil |
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See, smell and feel healthy soil, and compare to degraded soil (e.g. soil from a lawn, intensively farmed field). |
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Growing food |
Caring for soil |
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Research why people dig, what the effects of digging are and how we can reduce digging by using different plants, not stepping on soil, mulching etc. |
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Growing food |
Caring for soil |
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Learn about composting as a way of cycling nutrients locally, enabling us to 'produce no waste' and seeing how even worms 'garden'. |
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Growing food |
Caring for soil |
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See the layers of a compost bin or worm tower (e.g. through a transparent side) to see how organic material transforms into compost. |
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Growing food |
Caring for soil |
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Observe plants in the garden, noticing which ones are healthy or not and thus if they need more nutrients in the soil. |
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Growing food |
Caring for soil |
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Make compost using different methods (e.g. hot composting, wormery, cold composting, liquid compost). |
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Growing food |
Caring for soil |
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Hear a story about how all of life as we know it depends on soil. |
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Growing food |
Caring for soil |
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Find out that "weeds" are indicators of soil condition and can repair damaged soil (as they can establish quickly, protect and restore soil bare soil). |
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Growing food |
Caring for soil |
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Learn that healthy soil is 1/4 air, 1/4 water, 10% organic matter and 40% mineral (sand/silt/clay). Make a pie chart about this. |
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Growing food |
Caring for soil |
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Role play soil - Each person takes on a role of an element of the soil (e.g. clay/sand/silt particles, water, air, organic matter, plant roots, fungus, bacteria), then dramatise how those elements interact in different soils (e.g. compact, dry, wet, rich soil). Compacted soil has no air. At the end create a perfect mixture for growing which is 1/4 air, 1/4 water, 10% organic matter and 40% mineral. |
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Growing food |
Caring for soil |
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Appreciate the abundance and diversity within soil whilst walking barefoot as slow as possible. |
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Growing food |
Caring for soil |
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Have a compost party to celebrate the output from your compost. |
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Growing food |
Caring for soil |
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Discuss the importance of fertile soil and different ways of providing it (e.g. fertilisers, manure, nitrogen-fixing plants, compost). |
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Growing food |
Caring for soil |
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Learn vocabulary: soil, lime, mycellium, fungi, loam, silt, fertility, compact. |
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Growing food |
Caring for soil |
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Identify creatures in the compost (e.g. children create cards with pictures, names and explanations of the roles of that creature). |