Summer months are not just about school holidays and time at the beach. At our centre for environmental education Dropie we had been busy with a number of excursions from kindergardens, elementary schools and summer camps. Through an interactive and playful way, the children learned about the beauty and value of the Rye Island, the importance of insect as an elementary compontent of bird diet, the role of pollinators, and about ways to help biodiversity thrive in gardens and at school grounds.
The children could try being an ornithologist for the day, do bird tagging and build and hang bird houses. For us it was a great opportunity to test out new educational programme prepared in cooperation with BROZ as part of the LIFE Ostrovné Lúky project. It is nice to watch direct reactions of children to activities which we came up with, watch them as they observe simple insect hotel with recently “glued” a straw of knotweed (aggressive invasive herb that occupy large areas and reduces the natural biodiversity) by solitary wasp. The manual will also be prepared with a guidance on how to build an insect hotel, a bird feeder or bird box, boxes for bats, will contain basics for flower bed planting, what would provide food for insect. And the insect can be subsequently caught by birds, which can be caught by fox and over and over again. Because only such a country is really alive.
