The Biosphere through the eyes of a child

The concept of a Biosphere can be difficult to get across in a sentence. You need to experience it as well, and a day with pupils at St Padarn’s RC Primary School in Aberystwyth brought fresh inspiration for a group of Biosphere educators. Darllen yn Gymraeg.

Year 4's topic this term is 'the biosphere’, meaning the thin layer of the earth’s crust where all living things are found. They wanted to know how the Dyfi Biosphere related to that, and so freelance educator Jenny Dingle, who already knows the school well, designed a day to show them.

We began with the ever-popular Biosphere aerial photo mats, laid out in the playground, for children to find their school, their homes and other other places that mean something to them in the broad sweep of Cardigan Bay. From there, a walk up through Penglais Woods took us to the viewpoint from which Aberystwyth was spread out like a map.

You could see how human activity with all our roads, houses, trains and cars sits on the land, framed by sea and sky. Farming, fishing and tourism are all visible if you know where to look, and there were wind turbines on the horizon. This is the work of the Biosphere: to be a living lab where we try new ways to make these relationships work.

In between downpours, the children sketched maps of the town with its familiar landmarks – the castle, the pier, the station – before retreating to the shelter of an oak tree. They were finding their own place in the Biosphere.

In the afternoon. with a younger age group, the focus shifted from the big picture to a close-up view. The school makes regular use of the woodlands behind it (part of the University estate) and in that world a child can feel part of nature, held in a comforting space that is quite different from a classroom.

That was the scene for small groups to get their hands in to the leaf litter looking for bugs, to crane their necks up to the canopy at a flock of long-tailed tits and to join in some activities. Biosphere director Ann MacGarry helped them saw wood for nest boxes, while Jenny led a game on the web of life, using string to connect plants and animals and demonstrate their connectedness.

Fiona Moran of the Ceredigion Local Nature Partnership had brought bug viewers for the children to inspect woodlice, spiders and other animals on the woodland floor. Her role, hosted by Ceredigion Council and funded by the Welsh Government, is to support nature connection as part of the national Nature Recovery Plan.

The children were happy and engaged in the woodland, learning not just about the wildlife around them but how to walk on uneven ground, how to sit in a circle when tree roots get in the way, and how to use tools. There was calm and room for individual reactions.

The benefits of outdoor learning for young children are well understood and enshrined in education policy in Wales, but it is a principle that applies equally to adults, as our Awyr Iach outdoor health project shows.

Nature connection is not just good for our health. It is vital to wise decision-making, and that is what the Biosphere stands for above all. Let us hope that these children will grow up feeling at home in the natural world to which we all owe our existence.

Images: Steven Evans, St Padarn's RC School