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Environmental Education
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ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION

Since 1995, ARCTUROS has been successfully carrying out activities about environmental education in institutions of primary and secondary education, with the approval of the Ministry of Education. Each year, 100.000 students of either elementary schools, or junior and senior high schools are being educated and trained by the specialized educational team of ARCTUROS, which carries out the projects in the regions of Attica and Thessaloniki as well as other nearby regions. Apart from school classes, these educational projects also take part both in the facilities of ARCTUROS and in nature!

Environmental Education consists of the following projects:

EDUCATIONAL PROJECTS:

Τhese projects address kids aged from 8 to 15 years old. Through these projects, students are being informed about the perspectives of the bear’s survival, its connection with the good operation of the forest as well as the significance of the environment (both human and natural) of areas such as Grammos, Rodopi and the area from Mount Verno to Mount Varnounta.

The Wild Men (Agri-Anthropoi)
ARCTUROS has designed an alternative special quiz where everyone earns knowledge and sensitivity about the environment and the wildlife which is degraded and threatened in our country.

The Environmental Education program of ARCTUROS "Wild Men, Citizens of the Future" was designed by the pedagogical team of ARCTUROS aiming at informing and educating children about the environmental issues of the Greek mainland and their sustainable management. It is aimed at students of the last classes of primary school (5th and 6th), high school and lyceum. It has the form of an interactive presentation and it is implemented as TV show in the classroom. All students participate and have an active role, while the knowledge is presented in a playful and entertaining way. Besides the mentioned environmental issues -which concern the Greek mainland-, children play with Ecology, Geography and Culture questions, which are attributed to each administrative region. The game is filled with artistic videos which visualize with unique and artistic way the information. The main goal is the environmental awareness of the children and the promotion of the Greek environmental and cultural heritage.

Participants become…  Wild Men
The use of the educational program title is symbolic. Teenage children appear in the logo. The young people who take part in the program, put themselves in the process to be identified with the heroes and become wild men. They are modern times children who review their relationship with nature and wildlife.  The design of this program was implemented by a large multidisciplinary scientific team (biologists, foresters, scholars-educators, geologists, environmentalists, veterinarians). 
The cd includes the presentation, which is in the form of a game, and the teacher's guide. The children are divided into two groups of herds and start the game. Greek mainland is divided into administrative regions and each region includes closed type multiple choice questions. There are also introductory art videos which make the game more entertaining. At the end of the game, children have gained many environmental and cultural experiences. 




My own Mount Grammos, my own Mount Rodopi – Maps of my region


They address students of fifth and sixth grade as well as junior high school students. They are complete projects which touch at the special natural and cultural characteristics of two mountainous areas. The main objective is to urge the students, in collaboration with the adults of the area, to recognize and appreciate the diversity and the significance of their nearby environment (both human and natural) and to dare think of imaginative combinations to imprint the elements they will choose in a peculiar, unique, original map.

Through this activity of creating original maps, the interest of the students is focused not only in the natural environment, the architecture, the art, the history of the local society, the myths or the literature, but mainly in the multilateral relation that the human has with its direct environment. These projects include: activities for kids both inside and outside the classroom, audiovisual material, maps, guides of how to recognize animals and plants as well as a lot of targeted information for the areas, shaped so as they can be worked on by the students.

The Cartographers of Vernos and Vernountas

It addresses students of the fifth and sixth grade as well as the three classes of junior high school and it is connected with ARCTUROS’s endeavor to inform the students about mountainous areas with significant or rare flora and fauna and also sensitize them about their protection and their careful management. The project is organized in such a way, so as to be able to be materialized both by the student population which lives in the area around Mount Vernos and Mount Vernountas and by the schools of the rest of Greece. Its main objective is to activate the interest of students so as for them to study in depth the history, the culture, the customs, the natural habitat and the everyday life of this area while constructing original maps for these units such as a garden in the school yard, a map that can be eaten or houses made of clay and dough!

It consists of: a) eight projects related with history, culture, architecture, the natural environment, the different types of habitats and the traditional costumes of the area, b) five educational videos which serve as guides and were a result of the pilot phase, c) printed material with three routes of the area, d) a geophysicist map of the area and e) a teacher’s guide.

These projects are offered by ARCTURUS without charge. For more information please contact 23860 41500.

Forest, the bear’s home

The students who visit the Environmental Center of ARCTUROS have the option to observe the project. It is a project about Environmental Education which takes place in the nature, and more specifically the forest of Nimfeo which is a typical habitat for the bears. The project has as an objective to assist the students to understand in an experimental way the significance of the survival and the maintenance of the brown bear and the connection of its existence with the good function of the forest.

It lasts three hours, it is experiential with the children being in a direct contact with the nature and it consists of both individual activities and team games.

It takes place in classrooms, environmental groups but also for individual visitors.

For more information and to arrange an appointment please contact the Environmental Center in the phone number 23860 31155.

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THE “ARCTURAKIA”:

A magical place in the Nikios School of Nimfeo designed for children aged from 4 to 12. The young visitors are being asked to get initiated to the secrets of wildlife and to become the ARCTURAKIA. In order for the children to achieve this, they will have to complete entertaining guides of the forest’s identification, to discover the wild animals and trees through the traces they leave and to observe the forest during winter wearing binoculars. Their reward for this will be the creation of original constructions.

Educational Prescriptions:

  1. The children during the workshop are being individually preoccupied with activities, as there exists a big specially trained educational team of animators.
  2. 2) The educational activities are being especially designed for each age group.
  3. 3) The project lasts fifty minutes.
  4. 4) Through these fifty minutes the child has the opportunity to realize experiential and interactive activities such as: a) observation of the forest, b) study of the food chain of wild animals, c) tracing and identification of forest species, d) dramatized fairytale readings and e) original Christmas constructions which will have as a theme the wildlife of Greek forests.
  5. 5) The main objective is for as many children as possible to become ARCTURAKIA, which means that these children will make wildlife part of their own lives and will love and protect it. (This is the main priority for us the educators).
  6. 6) The project takes place in classrooms, groups of students but also for individual visitors.

To arrange an appointment please contact the number 23860 31155.

The educational activities are especially designed for each age group.

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EVENTS AT SCHOOLS:

The specially trained educational team of ARCTUROS daily visits schools in the regions of Thessaloniki and Attica as well as other nearby areas. At schools, presentations about the bear, the wolf, the forests and the environmental problems in Greece do take place.

If the school wishes, a complete project takes place with team games and entertaining and creative constructions made out of natural and recyclable materials with the theme of wildlife.

For more information please contact 23860 41500.

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SHIPMENT OF INFORMATION MATERIAL:

ARCTUROS travels at all of the schools in Greece. As the love and the curiosity of children for big mammals (bear, wolf etc.) is big like the house of all of us, the forest, ARCTUROS sends at schools that cannot be visited information and educational material; posters, leaflets, electronic interactive presentations, educational packages.

The postage burdens the recipient.

For more information please contact 2386 041500.

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INTERACTIVE PRESENTATIONS:

Through four different modern interactive presentations with comics, pictures of wildlife as well as animation, children learn about the biological role of the bear and the wolf as well as the vegetation and fauna of the Greek forests and the relationship between the forest and water.

Documentary by ARCTUROS: Wildlife, Part of our Lives

Duration: 15’
For children of all classes as well as for adults.

Content: The activities of the environmental organization for the complete management of the protected mountainous areas with emphasis in the bear, the wolf and the large mammals. The methods of scientific research for the protection of wildlife are also shown, as well as the reproduction and the free distribution of the Greek shepherd dog which serves as a means of protection from wild animals’ attacks. Lastly, the activities about the sensitization of people and about environmental education are also shown.

Interactive presentation about the bear for children

For kids who attend either pre-school education or the first grades of elementary school.

An electronic presentation about the activities of ARCTUROS with the goal to inform the children and sensitize them in the issues of protection of wildlife and the natural environment. Through pleasant comics, pictures of wildlife as well as animation, children are informed about the biological role of the bear in the forest and about why it is important for the people to protect wildlife. In parallel, they get familiarized with terms such as the scientific activity in the field and with ways of protection of wildlife. The presentation closes with the stories of the thirteen ex-captive bears which are being hosted by ARCTUROS in the Shelters of Wildlife in Nimfeo. The children get to know “the lucky bears of the war”, Barbara, Misa and Vesna, the bears which were ex-dancers like Andreas and Giorgos as well as those who lived under harsh conditions in zoos, such as Katerina and Mitsos.

Interactive presentation for children about the wolf

For children who attend either pre-school education or the first classes of elementary school.

Why does the wolf hunt? Why is the wolf being hunted? Why so many fairytales, movies and books about the wolf? There is an effort for all of these questions to be answered through an interactive presentation for children with the use of animation, pictures and text that presents to the kids the most misunderstood hunter, the wolf. All of the information about the biology, the ecology and the looming dangers which threaten the wolf are being presented. In addition, something else that is presented is the history of the ex-captive wolves of the Wolves’ Shelter which are being taken care of by ARCTUROS in the village of Agrapidia in Florina.

Forest: Source of Water and Source of Life

An interactive, experiential and humorous show with the application of animation about the right ways of reforestation, the vegetation and fauna of the Greek forests, the suburban forests and the relationship between the forest and the water. Through the experiential method of the parallelism of the life in the forest with the life of the children in the big urban centers, the students identify themselves with the wild animals and the forests, they realize their direct interplay with the forest ecosystems, even if they are away from them, and through the game they take part in, they realize the preciousness of the natural wealth of the Greek forests and the water.

The presentations are being offered without charge and are materialized by the educational group of ARCTUROS in school classrooms and educational places.

For more information please contact 23860 41500.


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