Investment and triggers a life-long interest in nature
of RZSS enable these attributes to be developed and our Global Classroom initiative brings groups of students from different schools together for a day of workshops focused on a particular topic area, such as sustainability and conservation.
For example, a message about recycling and resource use can be interwoven with an endangered species that they can see at the zoo, and by creating enrichment “toys” or feeders for some of the animals from waste materials, we have a practical engagement that helps bring learning to life.
As a charity, RZSS is grateful to the trusts and corporate supporters that help us provide our learning materials, lessons and visits at low cost – and in some cases free of charge.
This support and that of our general visitors has meant easier access to our learning activities for children, from the inner city and from rural remote areas.
In more remote parts, going outdoors is easy, but finding ways of focusing and connecting children to nature and to a national and global perspective is more challenging.
The RZSS outreach education programme has been designed to provide this focus and at the moment we are visiting schools across the country, from Edinburgh to Skye, and Glasgow to Shetland with our Beyond the Panda class activity that enables pupils to discover more about China, giant pandas and to think about their own environment and wildlife.
Where appropriate, we will use modern technology to get to the audiences that we want to motivate to get outdoors.
For example, we have conducted activities through the Scottish schools intranet service, making live broadcasts to schools. We have even conducted international live links with people in other parts of the world, giving students the opportunity to ask each other questions about their wildlife and lives.
From an acorn, an oak tree can grow, and from a child’s experience of nature, both at the zoo and out in the countryside, in a park or patch of green space, or even just via a carefully tended window box, a caring, responsible, environmentally friendly citizen can be made.
In time, that young person becomes the future and by giving them the opportunity to experience and appreciate nature at close hand, we are one step closer to helping our world remain a wonderful world for generations to come. l StephenWoollardishead ofdiscoveryandlearning,the RoyalZoologicalSocietyof Scotland What a load of guff. The idea that Scottish elections, for instance, are more democratic is laughable. The political agenda is set by the various parties at Holyrood, who now use opinion polls and surveys to implement changes to our society; manifestos have become an optional extra for the main parties now. If we wish to rid ourselves of a constituency MSP, and they wish to avoid the verdict of the people then, they just put themselves on the regional lists; we, the electorate, are simply bypassed. Give me first past the post every time.