Exciting educational project

The Park is home to some of the rarest species in Britain.

The new project that is underway – comprising practical educational workshops – is designed to capture the site’s unique features in the form of wooden sculptures. Run by the Park’s rangers, who are dedicated to furthering the conservational knowledge of children, ICM is sponsoring the workshops in order to engage young people with creative developments at the site.

Mike Chapman is the sculptor who will be leading the design process and who will ultimately create two or three large wooden sculptures in the shape of the wildlife native to the Park. Mike has extensive experience of creating such sculptures – something that the children will benefit from greatly when they experience his skills first-hand during a series of creative educational workshops designed specifically for them.

Young people can learn all about environmental and conservational issues at Avon Heath.

The Dorset schoolchildren involved in the project will be from a variety of backgrounds and educational stages. One group will be from Montacute School, a school for children with profound learning disabilities, and another from Turlin Moor Middle School. Montacute and Turlin Moor Middle will work together and consequently learn from each other’s needs as well. Older art students from other under-represented schools will also take part in the project.

Stage one of the workshops will involve the children exploring the Park’s wildlife with one of the rangers. Since the final sculpture will be based on one of the site’s native creatures, such as a sand lizard or butterfly, it is ideal that the children are able to gain a thorough understanding of the Park’s habitat.

The guided tour is planned to ignite creative ideas in the children’s minds which they can then pour out to the sculptor during the second half of the workshops. Most exciting of all, their ideas will be listened to and acted upon – Mike will work to ensure the children are creatively involved throughout the project.

Carol Dawkins is Assistant Ranger at Avon Heath. Responsible for coordinating the project, she is looking forward to seeing the children get involved: “We’re really pleased to have the sculptor Mike Chapman on board for this project, he is just what we are looking for – he’s happy to work with the wood we have available, his ideas fit in with what we want to communicate about the park, and he has experience working with children in the design process. It’s very exciting.”

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