Pedagogical centre for nature and environment

Equipment:

• green house with seminar room "Green Classroom", seedling breed, indoor plants, cactuses, succulents
• biology cabinet with teaching material and demonstration material
• teaching aids and handicraft material, students' kitchen
• 1.3 ha horticultural area (e.g. ecological fruit and vegetable garden, students' experiment bed), biotopes (among other things agrestal flower meadow, hedges, wall, wetland), demonstration areas(e.g. nature trail, trail for the senses, trail for agrestal plants)
• playground with willow cottages, barbecue area, small toys
• outdoor oven

Our work mainly focuses on:

1. Action oriented social studies and science in nature

Every week about 300 students "grasp" the nature when attending the regular social studies and science lessons in nature or coming for a project day to the garden.

Popular topics are for instance:

• "From corn to Bread"
• "Meadow as a Habitat"
• "Arrangement of Stucked Flowers According to the Season"

2. Integration of disabled children and teens

Working together in the garden as well as folksiness as for instance the traditional spring festival of the special school for mentally disabled and multiple impaired increase self-esteem and also the acceptance of disabled. The contact to the nature imparts diverse experiences to disabled children which enrich their lives.

3. Leisure time place garden

Children are using the garden after school fr different purposes. They care for their "own" beds or take part in nature workshops. After-school care clubs will be supported at creative activities and in games where the children can experience the nature. For senior citizens the Pedagogical Centre for Nature and Environment affords an opportunity to relax and to recover. The meeting and cooperation of the young and the young at heart sets up understanding between the generations.

4. Cross-border co-operation

In order to strengthen the environment consciousness in the Euroregion Spree-Neiße-Bober the Pedagogical Centre for Nature and Environment, the association of ecological schools and the State Centre for Ecological Learning in Zielona Góra build up a cross-border co-operation. Common educational concepts as well as basic principles for students' and teachers' exhange and teachers' training courses will be created.

5. The garden as outdoor laboratory

Students of the Sekundarstufe, students of ecology and participants of the gap year taken to do voluntary work in the environmental sector use the mini-biotopes as outdoor laboratory. They analyse for example how marsh beds, pond and agrestal plants develop, they experiment and document the results of the latest research. When crop gowing of renewable ressources and old cultivated plants they think of protecting the ressources. For this engagement they have been awarded in 1994 by the World Wide Found For Nature (WWF) with the "Great Panda-Price" in bronze.

6. "Gardening for humans' and nature's sake"

This slogan of the Deutsche Gartenbaugesellschaft (DGG, German Gardening Company) has been the motto for our work for years. We understand gardening as a means for sensitisation of children for the nature's thrive and prosper. In 1993 the committment of gardening with children has been was awarded with the "German Price for Ways to Nature Education" through the DGG.

7. Further education as well as research

The 1.3 ha big area with its species richness and the longtime experienced team enable internships, teachers' training courses, projects of social pedagogic professional education and researches of students of the Brandenburg Technical University.