Ecoregions and species
Green Steps is currently offering a hybrid Nature Guide Training to all parents and adults involved with childcare that are interested in understanding and experimenting with the benefits of nature education for personal or family purposes.
This training is described as hybrid, with online and offline assignments that can be done from any part of the world. The full training requires about 30 hours of practical assignments and 4 hours of online mentoring sessions where the participants gain the foundations to support children on their journey of personal development.
The novelty of this nature guide training is given by the fact that the participants do not only learn how to guide children in nature, but also they are enable to became stewards of their home territories by creating their own Ecoregion and Commons and curating them in a total decentralized way!
In other words, they assume the roles and responsibilities of Ecoregion and Commons Mentors – and turn into stewards of our planet. The learn about and share with others, local species of animals, plants and cultural practices to grow their Bioregional Identity! In order to accomplish this, Green Steps uses the ARK as digital backbone.
The training is first posted as an ARK course that the participants can book to read about the details, find the zoom links to the mentoring calls and to create posts to communicate with each other and the trainers. During the first session the concept of ecoregions and the importance to shift from a political world map to a new ecoregion world map to save our planet is explained.
The participants get an overview of the ARK roles with a focus on the Ecoregion Mentor. Ecoregion Mentors have the important responsibility to moderate an ecoregion, which means convening and supporting the commons located in the respective ecoregion. Plus, they should have a basic understanding of the flora and fauna of their area and review the species added by people using the ARK as commons mentors.
As an assignment, it is requested of the participants, to create their own ecoregion on the ARK with the help of One Earth and Resolve.
The participants are then invited to take a daily walk in their surroundings and search for interesting species to create and add in their new ecoregion. They should then share their observations with the others as ARK posts. In this way participants and trainers can learn from each other about those different ecosystems!
If you are interested in knowing how to create your own ecoregion or if you are a Nature Guide and you would like to use the ARK to support your next Nature Guide Training you should have a look at the zoom recording of the first mentoring session here.
Do not hesitate to contact us at [email protected] to know about many more ARK functionalities. Follow our next mentoring call to learn about Commons and specimens!