John Muir Award “spring”-ing back into action

As the daffodils bloom, buds emerge on trees and the mornings are increasingly filled with the poetic profanities of birds beginning to stake their claim on nesting sites and seek mates, so too our John Muir Award is springing into action after a brief winter hibernation.

Kicking off with a whole year group session on 6th March, the P7s reflected on their Award activity so far and explored further who John Muir was and what he meant when he said, “we all need beauty as well as bread”, with a deeper exploration of what the word “beauty” actually means. The day culminated with walking 1000 steps (in the spirit of Muir’s 1000-mile walk) around the green by Ullapool river, stopping every 200 steps for a pause to notice the beauty around us.

We have since led an Explore day with Lochinver P7s, initially splitting into pairs and searching the area for nature objects to match descriptive opposite words, and then trying to guess those words of other group’s findings. Later in the morning we filmed nature documentaries about the wildlife we had discovered as “Victorian Explorers”, and creatively named based on noted features and characteristics. This led onto a reading of the Lost Words and poetry writing.

After a planning exercise on how best to showcase Culag Woods, Lochinver pupils are looking forward to welcoming their fellow P7s during the Share day in April. Later in the Spring it will be Ullapool’s turn on Isle Martin, and we will finish off our Award activity with a celebratory walk up to the top of Quinag in June, to see how all these local places are connected in the wider West-Coast landscape.