Its Walk the Zig Zag time again!

The theme of this years Festival is “Forests”, because it is the United Nations International Year of Forests, one of my favourite topics!

The structure will be similar to my Sustainability Discovery Trail from last year, however this year we will be focussing on getting people out in the bush, the barriers, the risks, and protecting the environment from all those heffalups!

I have used our friend Captain Planet as structural inspiration… here he is (just in case you forgot about the hair)

The activity stations are themed; Earth, Wind, Fire, Water and Heart. At each station there is something to play with, look for or have a go at. When you complete an activty or find the hidden object you get a stamp.

Once all activites are completed the lucky participant will “graduate” as a certified Planet Explorer (ready for adventure in the bush) and be presented with a badge of honour. (obviously I wanted “Planeteer” but the powers above decided it was better not to be sued by Captain Planet)

I am currently playing around with the activites and their information boards, have a look and tell me what you think! Its all a draft at this point so its all subject to change (especially formatting). I welcome any ideas you have.

I kept it a bit simpler than last year, less reading and more action because I wanted to incorporate more hands on activities which meant less time for reading. I dont want it to be too drawn out becuase it needs to be short enough for people to do as they walk past. If its too big of a time commitment people won’t hang around. Hopefully it will engage the adult audience in the same way despite having less interesting things to read. I’m trying to make it more ‘give it a go’ than obvious learning. Last year I observed that it was too easy for kids to stand back, not touch anything and (semi)engage from a distance. Fair enough too, the activities mainly involved looking into the bush from the path. This year hands will be muddied!

To gage its effectiveness I’ve designed some that involve getting your hands in the dirt and others which are more passive so we can see the differences in response and involvement.