Kids love "Leave No Trace" - Day 3

Dear guys,

The last day of the camp was really short because the kids left at around 3pm. They woke up early in the morning and walked to the adjustment pond to watch birds with binoculars. Then, they made use of solar energy to boil eggs, etc. The most memorable part was the time when everyone looked back the past days’ actitivies through pictures. I think kids have really got out of something after taking part in this camp, not only the attitude and knowledge about nature, but also new friends from all over Taiwan. 

Kids went bird watching early in the morning

Aowanda looked absolutely wonderful in the morning!

The last day of the camp really made me sad because I couldn’t get to know more about those lovely kids. I wish they still kept in touch with each other after this camp and enjoyed the rest of this summer. In my opinion, this camp was successful in terms of creating diverse activities for kids to discover the nature here in Aowanda. However, it would be great if they could take part in more games because I didn’t see much interaction between different teams.

Kids love "Leave No Trace" - Day 2

Dear guys,

Here are some moments of the second day of Leave No Trace camp.

Food preparation for lunch out in the forest

Everybody is ready for the day out

Volunteer teacher tells kids about nature

Happy cooking time together

Main dish: noodle and vegetables

 After the lunch, everybody just relaxs and enjoys the cool weather out there :D

Kungfu crane, maybe? :P

Almost touch the bark!!

Love triangle :D

Then, everyone turns back to the bird-watching platform, getting ready to walk across the suspension bridge.

"Frog with wings" group

1, 2, 3, now turn your head back please 

No more than 50 people should walk across it at a time

Pause to admire the surrounding landscape

They head to the pine tree area to take part in an activity involved digging the cat hole. It is used to bury the human waste. :)

The pine tree area

It's easy, just digging in the ground

See if it is big enough :D

Then just do it =))) and cover it up with soil

In the evening, kids discuss about the seven principles of Leave No Trace through drama.

Watching attentively

Speaking up now

Role-playing

And recording

That's it for the second day of the camp! :)
See you later!
Flora

Kids love 'Leave No Trace"! - Day 1

Dear guys,

The third week working in Aowanda was marked by the “Leave No Trace” camp. It lasted three days and involved kids aged from 13 to 15 from all around Taiwan.

The detailed schedule of the camp was prepared very carefully beforehand. I was assigned as a photographer and I was supposed to record every moments during the camp. Thanks to the high-quality camera, my pictures didn’t look so bad! Here is the camp story through pictures.

Day 1:

Right after arriving at Aowanda, kids were grouped into four groups and then led to their rooms. 

Group 1: Panda (aka Simon) & Elephant (aka Maggie)

Group 2: Wei & Snail

Group 3: Spider and Calf

Group 4: GuaGua (aka Erik) and Swallow

Mr Spider overviewed about the rules during the camp before the first lunch in Aowanda’s restaurant. After lunch, kids played some warm-up games to get to know each other and their team leaders. For example, they had to transform a bowl of ice into a bottle of water. It was so fun watching how creative they were to find the solution.

Using magnifying glass

The next activity was drawing wooden name tag. Each kid was given a round piece of wood to write their names on as well as to draw certain pictures such as their teams’ symbol. For example, the symbol of Swallow and Gua Gua team is a frog with wings as a combination of swallow as a bird and Gua Gua as a frog.

They look so similar :)

Left: Frog with wings

After that, there was a series of indoor activities. Mr Spider gave a lecture about seven principles of Leave No Trace. Ms Swallow guided kids materials and things needed for a trekking day in the forest. Some kids listened attentively while others were so tired that they couldn’t help falling asleep.

Mr Spider lectured LNT

Umm~~~

Ms Swallow guided how to pack up

In the evening, making bonfire and watching stars were main activities. The bonfire was not a big one because it was used to educate children to protect the forest. Kids were asked to make a promise of respecting the environment. I remembered two special moments when everybody kept silence and followed their own thoughts. The first one was the dying out of the bonfire and the second one was the time when everybody lied down on the ground watching the star sky. Such  peaceful moments were really very precious in anyone’s life.

Throw a wish into fire, maybe?

I wish the fire was bigger :P

Unique star-watching style

Day 2:

Second day was such an intense day including both indoor and outdoor activities namely packing up for the lunch in the forest, walking to bird-watching platform, cooking lunch in the forest, walking through the Suspension Bridge, digging the cat-hole in the pine tree zone, brainstorming ways to adapt with “Leave No Trace”’s principles, watching home-made drama and recalling forest etiquettes.

Day 3:

The last day of the camp was really short because the kids left at around 3pm. They woke up early in the morning and walked to the adjustment pond to watch birds with binoculars. Then, they made use of solar energy to boil eggs, etc. The most memorable part was the time when everyone looked back the past days’ actitivies through pictures. I think kids have really got out of something after taking part in this camp, not only the attitude and knowledge about nature, but also new friends from all over Taiwan. 

Stay tuned for more pictures...
All the best to everyone,
Flora.

Preparations for Leave No Trace

Hi guys,

Today I'm going to write about our preparations for LNT camp. One of the most interesting endeavours was cleaning the ecological pond. We had to get rid of the Invasive Alien Species. I think that photos are going to tell better story than I possibly can. For the cleaning itself we adopted Snail's "knowhow" from last year. Trick was to "roll" IAS. While trying to roll we had to make sure that we were getting rid of all the roots too. It was actually a really hard work. I started with white T-shirt, came back in black one. And I still think that the shower afterwards was the hardest part, thats how dirty we were. Even though it was hard, it was still glorious and I can definitely understand why people pay for the option of doing this kind of work. Especially for people from the city, it really is an awesome chance to connect with the nature (not to mention doing a good deed). When we were done, the endemic species in the ecological pond had a lot more spaces to grow and it also looked nicer (at least in my opinion) for both visitors and kids from LNT camp to enjoy:)

After that we had to work in the library, where we rearranged the books and “added“ call numbers to each book, so it's easier to keep track of the books. We cleaned all the backpacks (every students are  going to get one backpack and learn how to effectively pick necessities and get them into the backpacks. We rearranged classrooms and Taiwanese interns worked on a drama for kids. The drama was a collection of scenes, each of them adressed one LNT rule. Erik, Wei and Maggie broke all the rules and showed, why it was wrong to break them. Flora and I took part in two of the scenes, playing fitting part of visitors. It was incredibly fun, and I think that kids would enjoy it too.

LNT camp report coming soon :)

See you guys,

Sam