Green summer camp in Rujiena - growing international!

We stage an epic tale

The Environmental Camp Ruja 1999

took place near the small river Ruja for the third time. As at previous camps (presented in previous Newsletters; ed.) the young environmentalists did the following:

• Investigated the river and the forest
• determined the Air Quality
• Did morning exercises
• Went on night rally
• Butterflies were investigated for the first time! At first we thought it would not be interesting because we see butterflies every day in summer, but it turned out to be a very exciting activity: Everyone made up a method how to do it! Some students just lay in the grass, some ran around in the meadows, some watched them from a distance, but in the end we cam to the conclusion that it was interesting to find out that there were so many different species of butterflies!

We make compositions of nature materials

Society in Environment - Environment in Society

took place in August and had participants not only from our school, but also from Riga and Tallinn, Viljandi and Moisakill in Estonia. The camp language was English. During the seven days the camp lasted all students participated in all groups:
During morning sessions we worked in three groups on:

• Rivers
• Forests
• Air Quality

In the afternoons we had the following workshops:

• Art - Compositions of nature materials, tree bark, twigs, moss, berrries etc.
• Environmental theatre on an ancient Scandinavian Epic tale
• 'Clay' modeling using salt dough as clay made of salt, flour and water 1:1:1
• Colours in nature.

All workshops were interesting, not least the drama workshop. We staged an ancient Scandinavian epic tale which was Reinis Sepps. This tale was shown on an open-air stage during the picnic. 

We also saw Latvia's utmost northern point marked by a stone sign called 'The White Nights'. Different entertainment activities took place in the evenings e.g. a trip to the mountain castle, a disco, a dress-up party etc. 

Before saying (or crying) good-bye we listened to the group presentations and the idea of meeting again some day was in everybody's mind and heart. I suppose that those who were not 'green' became 'green' and started to love nature a little bit more…

We determine Air Quality