Dec 20

Dec 20 The John Muir Award - Student Reflections

Citizenship, Environment, Outdoors, PSHEE, School Trips, Secondary, Wellbeing, Writing

This blog contains student reflections of their experience working towards the John Muir Award. The John Muir Award is described by the trust as:

The Trust's John Muir Award is an environmental award scheme focused on wild places. It is inclusive, accessible and non-competitive, though should challenge each participant.  The Award encourages awareness and responsibility for the natural environment through a structured yet adaptable scheme, in a spirit of fun, adventure and exploration.

Who was John Muir?

John Muir fact sheet by Clarence - Year 9

Student reflections

During 2022 and 2023 I took part in the John Muir award classes at Landmark International School, and must say that I very much enjoyed it. Together with Mrs. Curtis, we often took walks throughout the Fulbourn fen which were always pleasant on the 5th lesson of a friday, giving us the opportunity to get into Weekend spirits already, and not get stressed. We learned how to read maps, including what types of different paths there were, we compared the forest’s ambiente from late summer to early winter, we met the cows, and we enjoyed playing around the massive fulbourn oak. When we stayed at school, we thought about different aspects of nature, creating art from twigs in the break space, planning nature projects like school composts, or tyre flower beds. We even cleaned the playground of leaves until it was completely clean. I definitely felt much after every lesson, I felt refreshed by nature, and I learned how to look at the little things, like finding a bark bug, or learning about cows parsley, and helping organise my weekend plans. It is perfect for the people who feel like they don’t get enough time for walks or nature after school, and I would advise it to everybody.

Jan - Year 9

When I did my John Muir Award I felt a huge sense of accomplishment. The Award is about conserving nature and being inside it. I walked and ran around Fulbourn Fen with a number of other people to study nature and thinking of ways to preserve it. The Award gave me an idea of how we can conserve areas under threat. We also did research into one of the most important conservationists in the world. I would recommend this award as a motive to go outside and it also looks quite good on a CV. It shows you care about the world around you. This is why I liked John Muir since it gave me further knowledge and insight into conservation.

Elias - Year 9