For years, the topics of nature, environment, and culture have been an integral part of everyday school life at the Pestalozzi School through various projects. This is made possible by the cooperation agreement between the primary school, the Saar-Hunsrück Nature Park, and the Nature Park City of Lebach.
„The school community is pleased to now officially be allowed to carry the title ‚Nature Park School‘,“ explains Vice Principal Tobias Neumann. During the award ceremony, which was accompanied, among other things, by musical performances by the children, students shared and presented their impressions of the nature experience days that they conducted together with the nature park consultant and environmental educator Guido Geisen. In addition, the results of a workshop on making beeswax wraps as a means of preserving food were presented.
The chairman of the nature park, district administrator Stefan Metzdorf, presented the Pestalozzi School with the “Nature Park School” award together with Lebach’s mayor Klauspeter Brill and Dietmar Bonner (deputy of the Saarlouis district). “To experience and rediscover one’s homeland, to know one’s roots – this creates identity. As the school sponsor, we are very pleased to now be part of the nationwide ‘Nature Park Schools Network.’ This opens up exciting opportunities to inspire children for their homeland,” said Mayor Klauspeter Brill.
Stefan Metzdorf adds: "The cooperation with the nature park enables the school to focus the teaching on the local region and makes an important contribution to practice-oriented education for sustainable development," explains Stefan Metzdorf. This empowers the students to think ahead, reflectively and critically, and to make decisions that represent a fundamental prerequisite for a sustainably acting society.
“Through the joint commitment of the school, the school authority, regional cooperation partners, and the nature park, the project contributes to the identification with the homeland as well as to strengthening the sense of togetherness,” explains Nature Park Managing Director Gudrun Rau. “The students can learn with their heads, hearts, and hands in the Saar-Hunsrück Nature Park as a diverse place of learning and experience for their lives.”
Since 2014, the Saar-Hunsrück Nature Park has been participating as a recognized extracurricular education partner and now with ten Nature Park schools in Saarland and Rhineland-Palatinate in the nationwide "Nature Park Schools Network" of the Association of German Nature Parks (VDN). In Nature Park schools, topics such as nature and landscape, culture and crafts, agriculture and forestry are regularly covered in lessons, excursions, or project days. Extracurricular project partners like craftsmen, artists, farmers, beekeepers, clubs, as well as forestry offices and museums are actively involved. This allows students to get to know their region and develop a passion for it.
