What is the John Muir Award?
The John Muir Award is an environmental award that encourages participants to discover, explore and protect wild places. There are several levels, with the Discovery Award being the first level (requiring 25h+ of time commitment). Adventure Expeditions is a provider for the John Muir Award and we offer programmes that allow participants to meet the four challenges of the Discovery Award.
'' The John Muir Award encourages people of all backgrounds to connect with, enjoy and care for wild places.'' John Muir Trust
Learn more about the John Muir Award
The John Muir Discovery Award
The four challenges of the John Muir Award
Discover: a wild place or a range of wild places within an area to discover and learn more about. This can be a larger area such National Park or a more local site such as your school grounds of local park.
Explore: learn more about and experience your wild place and how it makes you feel being there. Enjoy spending time in your wild place, with friends, family or on your own.
Conserve: actively take part in conserving, protecting and enhancing your wild place. At AE we often work with partner organisations such as the National Trust to carry out conservation work. This can also involve improving a local wild place for wildlife for example by creating a wildflower meadow, planting a hedge or making a pond.
Share: let others know about your wild place, why it is special and important and celebrate what you have done to help protect it. This can be done in lots of different ways, the more creative, the better!
The John Muir Award in Action
The John Muir Discovery Award can be delivered in a variety of settings: using your school grounds, the local area such as a park or woodland, or a wild place further afield.
We do not have an 'off the shelf' itinerary but instead tailor programmes according to the requirements for each school or class. Below is an example itineray focusing on 'on site' sessions and using the school grounds and local area (most suitable for younger year groups and ideal for tying in with curriculum areas such as 'Habitats' or 'Improving your school grounds'.
Session 1: Discover a wild place. Spend time in your school grounds and learn about the different habitat types you can find there. Carry out a wildlife survey using binoculars and identify some of the animals and plants (e.g. trees) that can be found there. Learn about John Muir and what he did to help conserve and protect wild places and why this is important.
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The John Muir Award in Action
Session 2: Explore a wild place. Go for a walk in the local area and explore local wild places (this can be a local park, woodland or the school grounds). Spend time here and see how being outside in your wild place makes you feel. Use writing or art to express what the wild place means to you and why. For the second part of the session, plan what we could take to improve your wild place for wildlife. How could you attract more animals? What makes a good habitat for different species? Why is it important? There is the option of including an evening activity such as having a night time bat detecting walk with parents and one of our experienced instructors.
Session 3: Conserve your wild place and take personal responsibilty for its protection. Using plans from yesterday's session, take action by improving your wild place. Build bird feeders and bird or bat boxes, create bug mansions, plant a wild flower meadow or native trees/ shrubs.
Session 4: Share what you have done. Create information signs or leaflets and invite parents to see what has been achieved. Hold an assembly so other students in the school can find out more. Create art for the school grounds for others to enjoy.
Who delivers the John Muir Award? Our experienced team includes qualified teachers, forest school practicioners and outdoor instructors. We have a friendly team with many years of working with young people and a passion for sharing their love of wild places.
How can I get started? Contact us with your initial ideas and we will put together an itinerary and options for you to choose from, along with transparent per person costs (exact costing depend on the activities chosen). We complete all the necessary paperwork and registration for the John Muir Award and also put together joining information for partricipants and parents/ guardians.
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