Harmony at Princess Vlei by night and day

Post by Denisha Anand

Thirteen Harmony Primary School  learners attended their first camp at Princess Vlei from the 22nd to the 24th November. Learners from Grades 5 to 7 spent 2 nights at the Eco Center, a recreational facility based at Princess Vlei wetland park in Southfield.
      They started off their camp with a walk to the Greater Princess Vlei where they were asked to listen to the sounds of nature, observe ecological relationships at the vlei, note any threats and come up with solutions to deal with those threats. After each walk (2 per day)  learners spent time journaling in the books that we provided for them. They also made drawings of the biodiversity and collected leaves, feathers and stones during their walks.

 The sunbird and fynbos workbook guided the activities that the learners did while on camp and they managed to complete their books by Sunday. They spent some time being creative on Saturday by creating fynbos ecosystem collages for their journal covers. Learners also made sunbird and protea stick puppets and learnt how to use ink and pastel to create beautiful patterns on their birds and flowers.
On Saturday evening they were treated to a night walk at Princess Vlei, escorted by our on site park rangers, they all felt safe enough to explore. The endangered Western Leopard Toads were out and about and the learners were lucky enough to see a few toads, spiders and even a crab!
They also did a listening exercise at night to compare the sounds that they heard during the day to that of the night. On Sunday we closed off with the campaign poster activity in the sunbird and fynbos workbook, where they created beautiful pieces to create awareness about the relationship between sunbirds and various fynbos species and how we can protect and conserve these relationships.
Thanks to the National Lotteries Commission for funding this camp.