Education workshop at OUMNH

The seeds of many exciting woodland and wood education ideas were sown at a free CPD workshop run by Sylva’s Education Manager Jen Hurst this week. Kindly hosted by Oxford University’s Museum of Natural History, fifteen environmental educators, forest school leaders and teachers met with the Sylva team to develop an innovative follow-on project to OneOak – due to be launched nationally in September 2015. Watch this space!

The workshop kicked off with inspiring talks from Sylva’s Gabriel Hemery on the story of OneOak, and the work of Foresters by Paul Orsi. Master Craftsman in wood furniture, Phil Koomen, then got participants hands-on with creating their own designs out of wood. The Museum of Natural History’s Education Officer Chris Jarvis took us on a virtual tour of forests around the world and the vast range of biodiversity that forests support. A highlight of the afternoon was the ‘Oak lifecycle game’ run by Lynn Daley, Education Officer of Oxford University Harcourt Arboretum. Passers by were curious to see workshop participants running across the Museum’s lawn, competing for vital resources to help grow their acorns to oak trees!

Education workshop participants at Oxford University Museum of Natural History

The workshop buzzed with ideas as educators and experts went on to develop activities and resources for teaching and learning, both indoors and outdoors. Over the next six months these seeds of ideas are sure to grow into education activities that will go a long way to educating young people about Britain’s forests, woodlands, wood products and our growing wood culture.

Our thanks go to all the enthusiastic participants, speakers and the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Also to the funders of this new education project, the Patsy Wood Trust.