An important aspect of Skolbäcken is that the association prioritises schools close
to where the organisation has ongoing sites for fish-habitat restoration. The reasons
for this are partly logistical; the children should be able to walk or go by public
transportation, and partly formal; the curriculum emphasises the importance of
fostering children’s relationship to their local, nearby environments. The proximity
between home, schools and the restored water also gives children the opportunity to
discover a familiar location in a new light and revisit the site with friends and
families after participating in Skolbäcken.
Skolbäcken shares many characteristics with traditional outdoor education
arrangements. Looking at the core of outdoor education, there is a long tradition of
encouraging direct encounters with different environments (Sandell and Öhman
2013). A characteristic of outdoor education is a strong focus on bodily and an
experiential learning that builds on the interconnection between practical activities,
emotions, thoughts and multiple sensory experiences of phenomena and places. This
form of learning is often seen as complementary to the predominantly theoretical
learning that is characteristic for indoor teaching. Other benefits generally associated
with outdoor education include the promotion of physical activities, self-esteem,
collaboration, socializing, de-stressing, tolerance and joy (Gustafsson et al. 2011).
Furthermore, outdoor education is deemed suitable for an interdisciplinary curriculum and for strengthening children’s contact with nature, often with the hope that
emotional affinity with nature in turn leads to pro-environmental behaviour. The idea
that positive experiences of nature will help to spur environmentally friendly attitudes and responsibility is stressed by the educators involved in
Skolbäcken (Sandberg and Hansen 2018).
5 Different Habitats Used as Learning Environments
Skolbäcken focuses on ice, running water and wetland as three main learning
environments. On the ice, the children collect and build piles of branches and
twigs, which are sunk (in springtime) in order to create underwater spawning
areas, mainly for perch (Perca fluviatilis). They also learn about safety issues related
to being on lake ice. Running water is another learning environment and here the
children put gravel, pebbles and dead wood into streams in order to create spawning
areas and hiding places for trout (Salmo trutta). They also observe how fishing with
electricity, for the purpose of surveying the fish populations, is carried out. In
the wetlands, the so-called “pike-factories”, the children watch, touch and smell
the pike, which are weighed, measured and named before they are put back into the
water. The restoration work consists of carrying stones, which are laid along the
shoreline of the wetland and streams connecting the wetland to the Baltic Sea. This
prevents the banks of the stream from eroding or collapsing, and keeps the water
level high enough for the pike to migrate from the sea through smaller fresh water
streams into the flooded grasslands, where they feed and breed.
From Onlookers to Ecosystem-Assistants: Exploring the Potentials of Ecological. . .
223
to where the organisation has ongoing sites for fish-habitat restoration. The reasons
for this are partly logistical; the children should be able to walk or go by public
transportation, and partly formal; the curriculum emphasises the importance of
fostering children’s relationship to their local, nearby environments. The proximity
between home, schools and the restored water also gives children the opportunity to
discover a familiar location in a new light and revisit the site with friends and
families after participating in Skolbäcken.
Skolbäcken shares many characteristics with traditional outdoor education
arrangements. Looking at the core of outdoor education, there is a long tradition of
encouraging direct encounters with different environments (Sandell and Öhman
2013). A characteristic of outdoor education is a strong focus on bodily and an
experiential learning that builds on the interconnection between practical activities,
emotions, thoughts and multiple sensory experiences of phenomena and places. This
form of learning is often seen as complementary to the predominantly theoretical
learning that is characteristic for indoor teaching. Other benefits generally associated
with outdoor education include the promotion of physical activities, self-esteem,
collaboration, socializing, de-stressing, tolerance and joy (Gustafsson et al. 2011).
Furthermore, outdoor education is deemed suitable for an interdisciplinary curriculum and for strengthening children’s contact with nature, often with the hope that
emotional affinity with nature in turn leads to pro-environmental behaviour. The idea
that positive experiences of nature will help to spur environmentally friendly attitudes and responsibility is stressed by the educators involved in
Skolbäcken (Sandberg and Hansen 2018).
5 Different Habitats Used as Learning Environments
Skolbäcken focuses on ice, running water and wetland as three main learning
environments. On the ice, the children collect and build piles of branches and
twigs, which are sunk (in springtime) in order to create underwater spawning
areas, mainly for perch (Perca fluviatilis). They also learn about safety issues related
to being on lake ice. Running water is another learning environment and here the
children put gravel, pebbles and dead wood into streams in order to create spawning
areas and hiding places for trout (Salmo trutta). They also observe how fishing with
electricity, for the purpose of surveying the fish populations, is carried out. In
the wetlands, the so-called “pike-factories”, the children watch, touch and smell
the pike, which are weighed, measured and named before they are put back into the
water. The restoration work consists of carrying stones, which are laid along the
shoreline of the wetland and streams connecting the wetland to the Baltic Sea. This
prevents the banks of the stream from eroding or collapsing, and keeps the water
level high enough for the pike to migrate from the sea through smaller fresh water
streams into the flooded grasslands, where they feed and breed.
From Onlookers to Ecosystem-Assistants: Exploring the Potentials of Ecological. . .
223