Project “A Year in the Garden”

The new project called “A Year in the Garden” was started by Tereza Velehradská and Tomáš Smrž in collaboration with a class of 9 year old children from the school ZŠ Máj in České Budějovice, in the south of the Czech Republic. Children visited Cassiopeia’s garden four times between May and September, 2017. They were planning, planting and taking care of beds which had old varieties of various plants. The aim of the project was to experience the whole process of sowing, growing, collecting and preserving old varieties of seeds, connecting children with the need to preserve heritage seed varieties and equipping them with the necessary skills and knowledge about how to do this important work. Though we had problems with having enough time for all planned activities because of school timetable, children learned a lot about growing plants in mixed beds as well as about themselves in the group and enjoyed the process. They are going to use collected seeds for the school garden in the next year.

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Project “Natural architects”

“CEGV Cassiopeia” – the Centre for Environmental and Global Education, is creating three new educational programmes for introducing permaculture to school children. The programmes are called “Running out of oil”, “Observe and interact” and “Natural architects”. Cassiopeia’s educators Tereza Velehradská and Mariana Fendrychová are writing session plans, trying them with classes and creating tools for programmes supported by a donation from the Ministry of Environment in the Czech Republic.

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Secret garden – 5 days in summer with Cassiopeia

The summer time in CEGV Cassiopeia brought an opportunity for 18 children to experience 5 days exploring a natural garden and its various functions, such as providing food, water, and shelter for people and wildlife. Children and educators spent time in a garden, wood, bee farm and by ponds.

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Implementing permaculture in a kindergarten

Tereza Velehradská from CEGV Cassiopeia built raised beds in a children’s group called “Motýl (Butterfly)”. This event was organized by children, parents, and teachers of the group, and also Faculty of science staff in České Budějovice (University of South Bohemia), in the Czech Republic.