April 24 marked the beginning of the Sustainability Week with the participation of 1880 primary and secondary schools all across Hungary. The ELENA activities are also the part of this program where primary school students can get into contact with live animals through the ant, earthworm and dog activities. Those classes who implement the ELENA activities can take part in a competition by submitting photos, reports and feedback about their experience with the animals.
The opening event for the whole week program took place on April 24 in the Hungarian Natural History Museum with the participation of the representatives of the Ministry of Human Resources, of the Office of the President of the Republic and the National Sustainable Development Council.
In the Hungarian Sustainability Thematic Week 2017 with the participation of 350,000 students all over the country various ELENA activities were promoted as the part of the program. Teachers and students had the opportunity to get familiar with
- - building a simple earthworm habitat and carry out observations regarding the lives of earthworms in their temporary home in the classroom
- - builidng an ant farm then watching the ants shaping and forming their new sourrounding and conduct simple experiments and observations about their beahiviour, feeding preferences etc.
- -sharing their classroom with an assistant dog, learning about its behaviour, comparing it to to its wild relative the wolf
The teachers and students taking part in the program implemented one of the selected activities, complemented them with their own additional activities to have a holistic view and wrote a report about their experience. It was a wonderful experience to read the students reflections regarding these animals and how they enjoyed taking care of them and what they learnt from the whole project.
A few quotes:
- „First wehen we brought in the ants they híd for a while, started to get busy with work only later on”
- „We caught glimpse of some ants who passed away, and we didn’t see them after that. I’m sure their mates carried their bodies to a secret chamber”.
- „Having a dog is a great responsibility but it gives a lot of love and care in return”.
- „It was good to hear about the importance of earthworms, I started to forget it a bit”.
Congratulations to all the schools , among them the awarded projects came from the following schools:
- Dunaújvárosi Móricz Zsigmond Általános Iskola , Class 3.b
1st runner up - Dunaújvárosi Móricz Zsigmond Általános Iskola, Class 1.b
2nd runner up - Szegedi Tudományegyetem Gyakorló Gimnázium és Általános Iskola