A naturalist education activity booklet.
In partnership with Luis Valladares, Chilean naturalist and biologist, I created a “bitácora”, a field notebook guide, for the children who visit Biota Maule. The Biota is a centre for naturalist education, investigation and ecotourism in the Maule Region of Chile, funded by the United Nations, British Embassy in Santiago, Fundación Ayacara and the ASHOKA Foundation. I stumbled upon this magical place during my travels in Chile and fell in love with it. These guys are doing what I’ve dreamed of: helping young people connect to Nature through science, art and exploration!
It is an activity booklet that the children can fill in during their 3-day naturalist education programme and exploration of “Bosque Antártico”, the Antarctic Forest ecosystem that surrounds The Biota, nestled in the Andes mountains. There is space for the kids to create their characters, record their observations, design their experiments and keep their memories from their experience in The Biota.
I would love to create a similar style of field notebook guides for naturalist-style education in the UK - for children in my home, the Calder Valley!
Contents and draw your character!
Naturalist observations: noting observations and questions!
The Lab: designing your hypotheses and experiments
Flora, fauna and funga log book
Meet the authors
Biota Maule amongst the Coigüe trees, Nothofagus dombeyi.
Luis and a group of school children discussing their microscopic findings.
"Ruta del hongo" "The Mushroom Route" !!