EK Vol 38 Nature & YOU!

First page Previous page 8-9 Next page Last page

The ultimate playground Most of our programme activities take place in the nature reserve, which has the following “play apparatus”...

Nature play at uMngeni Valley

C’mon over… it’s time to visit WESSA’s education centre at uMngeni Valley Nature Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal, where nature is your playground and learning has never been such fun.

For more info, visit http://umgenivalley.co.za .

At uMngeni Valley we are lucky to have thousands of primary school kids visit us every year from across the world. We make sure that there’s always time for nature play in our school programmes. This means we encourage you to get dirty and to learn about the natural environment through fun and interactive activities, whether you are rock-hopping along a river, or digging in the soil to find earthworms.

The riverine forests are our leadership maze

Trees, boulders and logs are our jungle gyms

The Shelter Falls plunge pool and bum slide are our water park

Did you know? Nature play is good for you! From climbing a tree to grazing a knee, exploring nature will make you healthier, strengthen your muscles and improve your immune system. It also develops your senses and keeps your mind alert, because there’s always something to discover in nature.

The Milky Way is our cinema theatre

The stream is our science centre

Highlights of uMngeni Valley Nature Reserve As well as our school programmes, we offer plenty of activities for you and your family to enjoy. • Choose from six walking trails, including Dwarf’s Dawdle Trail, which takes you through an enchanted forest of Natal giant cycads and yellowwoods. • Use our Auto Trail booklet and learn about points of interest along a six-kilometre self-drive. • See how many of the 270 bird species you can spot. • Track the spoor of nyala, bushbuck or impala. • Enjoy the antics of vervet monkeys, rock dassies and giraffes.

Learning is an adventure We believe that learning by doing and experiencing is the best way to discover the natural world. Because suddenly it all makes sense when you see a scientific concept in real life! Let’s take ‘mini-beasts’, for example, a theme that is taught in every classroom in South Africa and introduces you to the millions of invertebrates [see glossary] living in our environment. You can look at a textbook or computer

The campfire is our bush television

‘The dugout in the weeds or leaves beneath a backyard willow, the rivulet of a seasonal creek, even the ditch between the front yard and the road – all of these places are entire universes to a young child.’ Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods

The views, seasons and scenery are our art centre GLOSSARY invertebrates : Animals that have no backbone or spine. They include groups like insects, worms, snails, scorpions and spiders. Milky Way : The galaxy that contains our solar system. It’s called this because from Earth it looks like a hazy (‘milky’) band of light. pooter : A glass jar with two tubes for collecting invertebrates. Suck on the tube protected by gauze (so you don’t swallow your specimen!) and watch as the other tube vacuums the creature into the jar.

screen to see how many legs an ant (six) or spider (eight) has, but we bet you’d never forget the answer if you could use a pooter to catch real-life creatures and count their legs. So don’t be scared to climb a tree, walk in wild places or look closer at a bug… it’s the most fun you can have, and you’ll always remember the lessons you’ve learned along the way.

Matthew Cocks is Centre Manager at WESSA uMngeni Valley Nature Reserve & Education Centre

6 EnviroKids Vol. 38(2), Winter 2017

EnviroKids Vol. 38(2), Winter 2017 7

Made with FlippingBook HTML5