About

What is the RZSS School Linking Programme?

The School Linking Programme includes 3 parts:

1. School pupils work on native wildlife projects of their own country – connecting with aspects of their school curriculum.

2. RZSS delivers an outreach lesson to the participating schools which introduces the life and environment of the linked country.

3. Representatives along with their project work are invited for a School Linking Day at Edinburgh Zoo where we will have a live web-cam link with the overseas country.

The main objectives for the Programme are:

• to set up Scottish schools with a global link to another school elsewhere in the world, hence developing global citizenship;
• to further the awareness of RZSS conservation activities in our in-situ projects.

The first of these school linking projects is in conjunction with the schools of the Falkland Islands.

Falkland Islands School Linking Project

The project involves both Scottish and Falkland Islands school pupils.
Scottish and Falkland Island pupils will work on a project based on their own wildlife which can either be ‘research/art based’ or involve an ‘active’ or ‘field work’ aspect.

For the research project, they may produce one of the following: a sculpture, craft, artwork, leaflet, book or similar.
or
for a field work project – work on a local environmental project, creating a school garden, clearing/restoration work, surveys, etc.

Pupils concentrate on their chosen native animal or habitat. The work closely relates to their science and environmental studies curriculum but also highlights global citizenship and some cross curricula objectives. 

Outreach
 
RZSS will offer an outreach lesson on the Falkland Islands to the Scottish pupils and an outreach lesson on Scotland to the Falkland Islands pupils. The lesson will allow pupils to discover the habitat, history, life and wildlife of the linking country.

Representatives from the participating Scottish schools will be invited along with their project work to a School Linking Day at Edinburgh Zoo at the beginning of June 2009. This will be an activity-packed day focusing on our penguins. Previously chosen children will hopefully talk directly to children from the schools in Stanley, Falkland Islands via webcam.

Participants

60 schools from across Scotland, the three Falkland Islands schools and Camp Education (travelling teachers for the islands) are taking part in the project. There are four age ranges, Nursery to Primary 2; Primary 3-4; Primary 5-7 and Secondary S1-S3.

Organisers

The working group is led by Sandie Robb, Senior Education Officer. The rest of the team are: Polly Phillpot (Senior Education Officer), Ruth Miller (Education Officer) and Laura Rennie (Outreach Officer).

Together we have developed and produced four RZSS teacher packs (one for each age range), to assist the schools with their native project. This pack includes various worksheets, information and a species linking list, allowing the schools to do a comparative study of the wildlife in the two countries.

We have also produced a range of outreach lessons providing interactive and stimulating experiences for the children. One of the resources we developed is a large scale floor jigsaw puzzle (2m x 1.5m) of an animal distribution map for the Falklands. We are grateful to Alan Thomson, Senior Graphics Designer for the illustrations and design of the map.

Objectives

The objectives of this project include an awareness of our own Scottish wildlife and environment, an awareness of the Falkland Islands – the similarities and differences to Scotland and conservation issues of longline fishing, pollution and global warming effects.

In order for the delivery of the Scottish outreach lessons to the Falkland Islands schools, Sandie Robb and Polly Phillpot will be travelling to the Falkland Islands. We will be delivering outreach to the Primary and Secondary Schools in Stanley, the Military School at Mount Pleasance and will be travelling around the islands with Camp Education.

Feedback

In addition we have also created this diary ‘blog’ which will be available on the Scottish schools network, so that all participating schools can follow our travels and get a flavour of the life on the islands.

Sandie Robb
Senior Education Officer