Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), Forestry Commission Scotland (FCS) and the Real World Learning Partnership ran a workshop and exhibited an ‘Outdoor Learning’ stand at the Scottish Learning Festival. The event which was held at the Glasgow SECC on September 24th and 25th, attracted around 6000 delegates mainly from Scotland, but a large number had also traveled from other European countries, the USA, Canada and Iceland. With its fabric backdrop, real trees and lively panels, our stand was quite different from other exhibits and attracted a lot of attention. Indeed some of the other exhibitors commented that it was the best stand at the event! During the two days, we had a steady stream of very enthusiastic visitors from all sectors of education. The growing interest in using the outdoors as a context for learning was also reflected in full bookings for our seminar, entitled ‘Real World, Real Learning, Real Benefits’. As a result of our presence at the Learning Festival we now have some excellent display panels plus an attractive leaflet/poster for teachers. This complements our existing pop-up banners and information leaflet for MSPs and decision makers.
