The activity of this stage invites you to take concrete actions to fulfill God’s mandate to care for and preserve his creation. Biblically orient participants to act according to God’s command, not because we feel guilty, but to be obedient stewards of the Creator.
The participants will pick up the garbage with one of the canes to which a nail will be inserted at the bottom. That way, without having to bend down, they gather whatever they find along the way and then put it in a bag.
Stone flour or stone powder is made by participants by crushing small and medium-sized stones with a hammer or mallet to strengthen soil used for planting or potting. This avoids the use of environmentally hazardous chemicals.
The “run and collect” (known as plogging in Sweden) is a new sporting modality, which unites the practice of sport with love for the environment: it is about going for a run and picking up the waste that one comes across along the way. The term is the result of the fusion of the popular English word 'running' and the Swedish expression 'plocka upp', which means to pick up."(Palou, 2018) It is modified a bit "plogging" as everyone stands in a straight line, side by side. They are going to walk the entire field, always keeping in a straight line and picking up any trash they find along the way.
Participants will be encouraged to consider their environmental responsibilities. Then they will make bags using old newspapers. They will agree to distribute their bags once they have finished them. As everyone hands in their bag, they will strive to raise awareness to avoid polluting the land and trees with trash.
“Don't get burned and put out the fire!” is a variation of the traditional game “dodgeball” Participants will form 2 teams of 5 to 8 members per team. The two teams will represent firefighters (blue scarf) and fire (red scarf). The players of the “firefighters” team must extinguish the members of the “fire” team by throwing a ball, and must prevent the members of the “fire” team from destroying the “firefighters” team. At the end of the game the director will ask questions to the participants.
Stages of the Flow Learning Process
- Awakening Enthusiasm
- Focusing Attention
- Offering Direct Experience
- Worshiping the Creator
- Acting as Stewards of Creation
When you find an ecological topic of your interest and possibilities to explore, follow this sequence, and you will discover that the activities will generate appreciation, joy, gratitude and response to the beauty of creation.
(1) Cornell, JB, & Mané, P. (1982). Live nature with children. Editions 29.
Ecological Themes of the Collection
The unique factor of this collection is that in addition to organizing the activities into ecological themes, each Theme contains a sequence of five activities. This sequence is based on cutting-edge pedagogy that transforms children’s apathy toward nature into joy by having them play, observe, experiment, admire the Creator, and even take action to conserve nature. This system is called: Fluid Learning® (Used under license from Flow Learning® by Sharing Nature Worldwide). It traditionally has four stages, but for the purposes of this collection the fourth has been amended and a fifth stage has been added.