Future Farmers Education Programme

The Nano Nagle Centre

Programme Aims: To engage students in an immersive environment where they can explore different aspects of sustainability and ecology through hands on, experiential and scientific activities.

Overall Learning Objectives:

For students to…

–          Better understand the food system, where food comes from where and how it is produced.

–          Explore the role healthy ecosystems have in our food system and why they are important.

–          Learn how to take care of domestic animals and how to protect and conserve native wildlife.

–          Learn about our natural resources and their importance and management.

–          Apply scientific thinking and processes to practical activities

–          Have an opportunity to design and make things from easily sourced materials

–          To put into practice in a safe yet interesting environment, the scientific skills already acquired in the classroom

Each theme has learning objectives and outcomes specific to the activities involved in the session.

 

Curriculum Links:

Subject Strand Strand Unit
Social, Environmental and Scientific Education Living Things

 

 

 

 

 

Human Life/Myself (Human life processes) [pg 24,41,61,83]

 

Plant and Animal Life (Variety and Characteristics of living things, Processes of life) [pg24,42,62,84]

Energy and Forces

 

Light [pg25,43,6385]

Heat [pg25,44,64,86]

Forces [pg26,45,65,87]

 

 

Materials

 

 

Properties and Characteristics of Materials [pg27,46,66,88]
Environmental Awareness and Care

 

Caring for my Locality [pg28,48]

Environmental Awareness and care[pg68,90]

Science and the environment [pg69,91]

Caring for the environment [pg70,92]

English (Language)  

Oral language

Geography Natural environments

 

Environmental awareness and care

Mathematics  

Shape and space

 

Visual Arts (The Arts)  

Construction

 

Science

 

Living things

 

Environmental awareness and care

Drama        (The Arts)

 

Drama to explore feelings, knowledge and ideas, leading to understanding

 

Music (The Arts)

 

Listening and responding

 

Performing

Physical Education

 

Outdoor and adventure activities

 

SPHE Myself and the wider world    

 

Themes and Activities

Animal Husbandry

Learn about how to take care of farm animals, what they eat and the environment they live in.

–          Help us collect eggs from our free range chickens

–          Learn about how worms are important to a farm and see the worms working hard in our wormery

–          Learn about animal herd behaviour by observing our herds of sheep and cattle

–          Meet Fred and Ginger our donkeys

Take home your own naturally decorated egg to keep for your dinner.

Composting

Discover the underworld secrets of the compost heap. Composting is one of the most important activities that exists on an organic farm and it is also the busiest place on the farm.

–          Come on a compost heap bug hunt.

–          Try using compost to grow your own vegetables.

–          Learn how to manage a compost bin and try your hand at turning it over to help it break down faster.

–          Learn about why things break down and the difference between organic and inorganic material through our fun games.

Take home a recycled plant pot with a seed planted in the compost you harvested, to finish growing back at school or home.

Organic growing

Organic growing allows the gardener to be really creative in all the different ways and spaces that they can use to grow food.

–          Visit our polytunnels that are bursting with food, taste wild raspberries and blackcurrents straight from the bush or fresh tomatoes from the vine.

–          Try using recycled materials to create your own unique plant pot or mini garden.

–          Learn about what a plant needs to grow, the time of the year different plants/vegetables grow in Ireland.

–          Create a fresh fruit or wild leaf salad straight from our garden and hedgerows (Dependent on the season).

Take home a planted seed and a cutting of a herb from our herb garden.

Cooking Outdoors

There is nothing like the joy of food that has been cooked outdoors. BBQ’s are for picnics, come and do some wild cooking off our campfire and wood fired pizza oven. Find the food straight from the garden and enjoy an extra treat with your lunch.

–          Help build a safe and sustainable campfire in our fire pit. Learn about heat and light and how people would have cooked years ago before we had electricity.

–          Take a foraging walk in our garden and collect berries and fruit to make jam or tomatoes to make relish or cucumbers to make fresh pickles.

–          We will eat our culinary masterpieces with freshly made bread cooked over our campfire.

Every student will be able to make a bread roll and take home a small container of jam/preserve. Exact recipe is dependent on the season – call beforehand to check.

Sustainable Building

To become more sustainable we have to learn how to do everything in a different way that is less damaging to our environment. This can be seen as hard work or something very exciting that allows us to be really creative and innovative. At the Nano Nagle Centre, we prefer the latter, come and learn how animals and insects build sustainably and find out how we can learn from them.

–          Using recycled materials help build our greenhouse out of plastic bottles.

–          Or test out our water wall and see if you can investigate how water flows and moves within pipes.

–          Try your hand at cob building (building with mud and straw), a similar method to how the Celts used to build their homes in Ireland.

–          Try our famous Egg Nest Challenge… can you build a nest as strong as a bird, that will protect the egg in it?

Students take home their own cob sculpture and nest.

Irish Farm Wildlife

On an organic farm we do not use harmful pesticides or fertilisers that would hurt Ireland’s wildlife. For that reason we have a lot of beautiful wild insects, birds and animals. It is a great place to learn about Irish wildlife.

–          We have loads of games and activities to help you learn how to identify different species of animals/plants and bugs. Bug hunts, food web games, bat and moth and much more…

–          Learn how to create your very own superbug

–          Build your own insect hotel to take back to school or your home

Students take home their superbug made of clay and insect hotel.

Bush craft

Bush craft is an incredibly powerful tool for learning about past civilizations and learning how to problem solve. It improves motor skills, physical dexterity in an interesting and fun way. It also teaches us about sustainable resource use and respect for our environment which supports our lives.

–          Try and build a fire without matches, using flint just like in the stone age (well almost) – campfire is weather dependent.

–          Rope is a basic for any survivalist, learn how to create rope from willow bark, test its strength and see how much weight it can manage to support.

–          Discover the trick to clean water by learning to build a simple water filtration system.

Students can take home their rope and the class can take the water filter system back to the classroom, they will also get to make smore’s on the campfire.