🌱 What happens when nature becomes not only something children learn about, but a place where they learn, investigate and act?
In our small rural primary school in Courdemanche, France, environmental education has progressively become part of everyday school life.
For around five years, approximately 110 children aged 5-7 have explored biodiversity through direct experiences: observing living organisms, investigating soil and habitats, growing plants, composting, caring for hens and discovering the ecological roles of insects, birds, bats and other species - including animals that are often disliked or misunderstood.
For the last two years, outdoor learning has become a weekly practice.
Our school has progressively become a living learning environment, with a vegetable garden, composters, nesting boxes, insect hotels, bat shelters and spaces dedicated to biodiversity.
But the most important transformation is not what we have built. It is what we observe in the children.
Through repeated contact with the living world, they progressively change the way they look at nature. They notice small animals they previously ignored, pay greater attention to habitats, adapt their behaviour and spontaneously share what they have learnt with other pupils.
They move from observing nature to caring for it.
This journey is also collective. Families, grandparents, community members and external partners have contributed to different stages of the project. Hélène from the association Mémo 72 has worked with pupils and supports the pedagogical development of our environmental education programme.
Our pupils have also begun connecting environmental learning with citizenship and Europe through previous eTwinning experiences.
🇪🇺 Now we are ready for the next step: European Nature Guardians.
From 2026, we want to connect young children from different European territories around one simple question:
What can we learn from the nature around us - and what can we do together to protect it?
A travelling mascot will move between partner schools, carrying observations, discoveries and ideas from one territory to another.
Each class will explore its local biodiversity, investigate ecosystems, take concrete action and share its experiences with other European children.
In this way, the mascot will not simply travel. It will help environmental ideas travel too.
At 5 or 6 years old, children cannot solve the climate and biodiversity crises. But they can already learn to observe carefully, understand relationships between living things, cooperate, care and experience that their actions matter.
We believe this is where education for sustainable futures begins:
Explore → Understand → Care → Act → Share
From our small rural village to other classrooms across Europe, we hope to grow a community of young European Nature Guardians.
This is wonderful. I love the idea of a traveling mascot sharing ideas, connecting people and making learning more fun and memorable!
Thank you so much! 😊
Actually, I’m currently looking for partner classes in different countries to take part in this travelling mascot project.
The idea is to send our mascot with a small kit from France to a partner class. The students would discover and learn about the mascot’s home country, France, and then welcome the mascot into their own school and daily life.
During about six weeks, they could prepare short articles, photos, drawings or other little contributions to share their country, culture, school and local area with us.
At the end, they would send the mascot back to us, along with a few small objects or souvenirs representing their country. We could do the same in return, creating a real cultural exchange between our pupils.
If you’re interested in taking part with your class, I’d be very happy to organise an exchange with you! 😊
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