Seminars on the Great Bustard or How to Get the Bustard into the School

📌 seminars, 2 trainers, 2 cities, 16 hours, 81 participants, 18 working groups, plenty of ideas

On the 24th and 25th October, we organised four seminars on the Great Bustard and other natural values from the Salonta area for primary and middle school teachers. The seminars were led by our colleagues: Judith Papp and Katalin Kelemen, in Romanian and Hungarian, in four schools in Salonta and Oradea, Romania.

Our aim was to present the bustard population from the Salonta area as a natural value of great importance for the mere fact that it is the only viable bustard population of Romania. On the other hand, we wanted to give the teachers the right tools that could motivate them to bring nature protection and the local natural values into their classes, whatever their speciality.

It was very rewarding to see the interest of the participants. We felt that the teachers came because they consider it important to raise the children as conscientious nature protectors.

Here are some of their opinions and impressions:

“The seminar was a sheer success. I teach Romanian language and literature, but I believe ecological education is the responsibility of every one of us. I didn’t even know the bustard had a habitat in the Salonta area. I felt I was part of this Great Bustard protection project. I got involved and I enjoyed working together with my teammates during the workshop.” Roxana / middle school teacher, Salonta

“I strongly believe it is everyone’s duty to ensure their contribution, in any humble way, to protect the environment that surrounds them. Exceptional organization, persuasive presentation. I find it a very good idea to raise the children’s interest by preparing their teachers. I did not know much about the bustard, hence I have greatly enriched my knowledge.” Katalin / primary school teacher, Oradea

"I left the seminar with lots of ideas that I was looking forward to putting into practice with the children. Thus, I would like to guide them towards a pro-environmental behaviour that I also consider important.” Lilla / primary school teacher, Oradea

For the time being, we are working on wider guidebook for the teachers. We hope they will find it useful in preparing their classes, but also in encouraging the children to participate in the contest that we will organise within our project in the 2018-2019 school calendar.

We would like to thank our participants for their interest and involvement, and we are grateful to the schools that have kindly hosted us: Arany János High School (Salonta), Teodor Neș National College (Salonta), No. 11 Middle School (Oradea) and Szacsvay Imre Primary and Middle School (Oradea).

Text and photo credit: Milvus Group