It has been an interesting experiment to do all this study for a national five as everything about the education system changed this year due to restrictions and we had to adapt quickly, we were also limited to doing a lot online. But we got through it and it has been celebratory to come to a natural end and we have been enjoying getting back to our roots at Chancefield for a spot of reflection and acknowledgement of our completion.
We had a great Sports Day in the woods and also had a go with a spinning wheel and some collaborative walking ! At the end of June we are off to Eigg and are very excited about that, it will be a welcome break to cook, play and explore a little further from home.
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We have been immersed in our studies for quite some time, working our slow and sure way through a National Five in Environmental Science. We sure picked a tricky year to commence formal studies as schools have had to change the way they worked and we had a long pause in meeting up. But finally the end is in sight, last week was the first of our exams and tomorrow is the second. We have been meeting for study dates too whenever it fits and whatever the results are completing this step will give us a strong sense of accomplishment.
In between the wild ways don't pause so we have been learning about bee keeping, wild flowers, market gardening, and making limestone from shells on the beach not just on paper but in real life as that's the way we like it. Thank you for reading our blog ! It's been a long time since we could gather in more than two at a time. We found it so refreshingly great to not start Monday with an intensive three hour Zoom call with a last minute dash to briefly meet up and disperse again with just one of more person. Not this Monday, this time we met in the picturesque fishing capital of the East Neuk - Pittenweem and stayed under the open skies for the duration.
We wandered, laughed and gathered facts and fictions about the fishing past for our shared Environmental science project about the sustainability of fishing. The great thing about doing it the Wilder Ways way is that we can have the physical resonance right by us while we think about theory. We definitely feel lucky especially when it stays dry and our paper remains intact. We even finished off with a swing and spin at the playground and met our canine pal Sonny. It was a grand reunion. We've been busy getting stuck into our national five study in Environmental Science - and enjoying the last months of 2020 which may be one of the more memorable ones we have all lived through.
A few of things we have done over the past fortnight include measuring abiotic factors. An abiotic factor is a non-living part of an ecosystem that shapes its environment, such as temperature and light. We also thought about possible sampling errors in fieldwork and brainstormed ways to account for them. We have figured out a few ways to be creative over the months including using sweets to helped turn sometimes dry science into enjoyable keeping our reward centres activated :-) It was great to realise we have become way more competent in doing things like transects and quadrats - (ways are ways of surveying land). It's been great to have a different part of the estate to go to. We've had hunkered down lunchtimes in the new plantation for after which we all disappeared and crawled up to the tower! We also enjoyed some richly reflective time - some of us did mock assessments in the wind and rain, something we had mixed feelings about! Some of us sat by the fire and tapped into some self-reflection. We also explored our relationships with the 8 attributes we work with at Wilder Ways. As a reminder these are: Common Sense Quiet Mind Self Suffiency Caring and Tending Aliveness Agility Inquisitive Focus Awe and Reverence Service to Community We all got together to identifying gaps in the attributes and what we are currently working with, and we made a plan to help fill them and make sure we are hitting those targets rather than just our academic ones. We have also prepared for an interview from the SUII project about the sustainability of the estate.. More news on that soon. For now Stay Wild and check us out on Instagram ( @Wilderwaysfife ) if you're on there for bitesize updates. We've had a wild time these past weeks. Here are some updates!
A week ago on our Monday we visited the Bamff Estate which is an award-winning eco-tourism spot that has been instrumental in the reintroduction of Beavers to Scotland. Beavers face many threats as their natural habits oppose the interests of commercial farmers in many instances. We learned about their extraordinary powers to shape habitats that increase biodiversity and reduce carbon emissions through wetland creation. Wetlands make up only 1% of the terrain on earth currently but do so much good. Many wetlands have been drained or covered over for commercial reasons. Our work at home for our Environmental Science course involved writing letters to NatureScot to ask for funding for their essential work. On Saturday the 31st of October it was Samhain. "Ancient Celts marked Samhain as the most significant of the four quarterly fire festivals, taking place at the midpoint between the fall equinox and the winter solstice. During this time of year, hearth fires in family homes were left to burn out while the harvest was gathered" We worked with Jim Shearer an incredible metalworker and made a variety of tools from Iron at the Woodland Hub in Chancefield near our base. Among us, we fashioned knives, pokers and arrowheads. Then we took to some festive competitive apple eating. On Monday we went to the Eden Estuary at Guardbridge and looked for bird indicator species to find out more about the environment. We were there at high tide which we learned was not idea though we still saw a lot. We found salt marshes, learned why we should avoid quicksand and generally frolicked. Oh and we found a magnificent decoy duck. We alighted early at Kingsbarns Beach in the East Neuk last week. We had four seasons in one day, the last day of the term session.
We examined the meaning of several biological/scientific terms such as "Herbivore" and " Decomposer". We reused the language to retell a story that Paula told us about how to make a sustainable burger. We'll let you know when we have cracked the sustainable burger formula. Then we went down to the rock pools and looked at all the inhabitants—our explorations and investigations in the diverse shallows tied nicely to understanding the interconnections and webs of life. We had all gathered our field guides from home, and when we had kidnapped some creatures ( temporarily ) in some containers, we then worked out in what beings eat others starting with seaweed in the middle. Then we released them without ransom to their watery abode. After that, we walked down the expansive beach and made sandballs and art inspired by our learnings. We had a fantastic Saturday a week or so ago, which meant that many people from School could join us. We always have a great time with old and new friends. The days task involved locating a waterfall for some necessary supplies. On the way, we encountered challenges and spotted the changing seasons. We also played games and made lunch.
We are working through our national 5 in Environmental Science collectively, and Mondays are our day we focus on the on-site survey work. It's such a great resource to have each other to do things with and bounce ideas around. It also really keeps us on track - without having formal schooling as part of our day to day life, it's something we all value. This week we did some Kick Sampling in small streams firstly Ceres Burn by the Folk museum in Ceres and then by Craighall den in Ceres. This was to measure the difference in species variety in the two areas - one Urban and one not. Kick Sampling is a biological method of measuring varieties and amounts of samples. Official definition from the biology fieldwork site: Suitable for shallow running water with a gravel or muddy bottom. Hold a fine-mesh net in the direction that you are facing. This should be downstream of where you are standing. Use one foot to kick the bottom of the stream, dislodging the substrate in the direction of the net. There didn't seem to be much difference between the two places we studied, and this may come down to the fact that both sites are reasonably rural and close to each other. If we explored a city centre river and a country park stream, we might find a more pronounced variance - next time. Still, the exercise was useful in perfecting the method. After that we did some connecting with water challenges which we randomly chose from a large selection in a hat. One was to give a fake BBC News report about bodies of water in the UK. Another was to cross one particular body of water seven times in different ways without once getting wet. Then we debated the ethics of mass insect farming with one other person. Another one was to describe mycelium and its qualities backwards. The last one was to describe a day in the life of a dipper. While we were waiting to get picked up one of us explored some prehistoric art methodologies by using flower juice as a printing ink. The effect was quite chilling. We had our camp in Argyll just a few weeks ago, and it was magnificent. The freedom and beauty were enough to set off the rather windy and wet weather which caused at least two tent collapses - luckily this happened on packing up day. We would have had to call for reinforcements if there were days left - soggy is not fun. The rest of the time we basked in mostly clear weather. It was great to see our friends from Argyll too and Marylou, our long time mentor and co-founder was there too - reunions are so satisfying. Pictures go a long way to explaining everything so check out our snaps above! On Monday we met again for our usual term-time session. We have swapped from our usual Friday meeting day to accommodate higher education dates for some of our participants. We will also meet on one Saturday a month for those who are in school full time. So on Monday, we met at Magus Muir woodlands which is managed by the woodland trust - it is near Strathkinnes. We had a great day. We were joined by bird survey expert Tony Wilson and had some hands-on survey experience and saw some bird ringing carried out too. This helps to understand behaviour and track avian populations. It was so good to get into the swing of things and for feel like we have a full few months anchoring in Wilder Ways to look forward to. Today felt remarkably well balanced too. We spent time between information processing, hands-on practice and participation and some teenage hanging out/challenges - then, after the bird adventures we explored and set on trail on the history and wider site. Magus Muir has a history that goes back centuries and has some interesting monuments as well as boasting a diversity of tree species. We are also now collectively studying a National 5 in Environmental Science which will be accredited and we have lots of tasks that we ordinarily do that can be woven through that lens. It feels really satisfying that it will count towards something that is universally recognized, whilst incorporating much of what we do anyway and keeps us on track with our purpose. We have been discovering what changes and what stays the same in these times and finding out first hand what works better in person even with us keeping our distance.
We did a treasure hunt for 31 cards…. but collectively only found 22! We each had a memory on each card from the last year, which they pegged in order – remembering it very well. We also made a tippy tap – very successfully. Our group made elder capsules and buried two of them at our sit spots – we thought about them symbolising something we want to forget and let go of and something we want more of in their life. We shared aha moments from the year, have you had any and did some dragon dreaming to plan for next week’s celebration. Then the next week... We talked about what makes us feel alive this was different for all of us and was aided by the full flurry of life all around us. Summer is so healing and hopeful. We played many games on the sports field all morning, this helped shake out any cobwebs and got us all feeling hopeful and connected. Paula disappeared completely ( suspicions were alerted ) and left a trail to warm pizza from Pillars of Hercules for lunch…...mobile phones were necessary to get there though and it was worth it! Pizza never fails. At camp we did some balancing rounds on the beam and carried that into reflections about what at Wilder Ways helps us feel alive and how do we feel when we aren’t feeling alive. What about you? Sluggish? Sad ? Unmotivated? What habits do we have that create that feeling and how do we shake ourselves out of that. We had a wee burning ritual to send our intentions to balance our aliveness over the summer. Marshmallows were seen…...and that made us feel a little bit alive, too many will start a negative cycle though. Sugar high/low anyone !!! Have an amazing summer everyone. |