The 2023-2024 academic calendar has just closed and the Cabildo de Lanzarote makes a “very satisfactory” assessment of the free service offered by the institution through the Educational Trails to island centers and non-profit groups.
“A total of 4,133 students from Lanzarote and La Graciosa have participated in these environmental awareness routes in recent months, and the waiting list for next year is 2,262 students. The official figures speak clearly of the acceptance of this proposal,” Betancort detailed.
The Educational Trails of the Cabildo de Lanzarote are designed by the Máguez Nature Classroom, an entity dependent on the Environment Area, which is directed by Councilor Samuel Martín.
“They are unbeatable outdoor settings for our professionals to guide them in the interpretation of the Lanzarote habitat, encouraging them to acquire their own environmental awareness criteria, favoring sustainable behaviors. Both the educational trails and the stays in the Classroom are aimed at facilitating knowledge and enjoying the natural environment,” commented Samuel Martín, who also reminds us of the recent constitution of the Environmental Education section of the Máguez Nature Classroom, “a basic tool in the management of this service.”
The Cabildo thus makes available to students the work of the Classroom's environmental monitors and facilitates the interpretation of the trails, using modern educational resources for this purpose.
During this year, the majority of the protagonists of the routes have been students of Infant and Primary, followed at a distance by students of Secondary Education, Baccalaureate and other sociocultural and sports groups. Applications must be made through the electronic headquarters of the Cabildo de Lanzarote, with the form 'Application for educational trails of the Máguez Nature Classroom'.
The Máguez Nature Classroom Department is made up of a multidisciplinary team of environmental educators with extensive experience in the design and implementation of environmental education activities, committed to the responsibility of promoting education for sustainability. Last year they attended 197 groups on the Educational Trails.
Trails of imagination and knowledge
If we focus on the level of participation in each of the routes –almost twenty– during the 2023-2024 academic year, we observe that the one called “The Hedgehog Helechín” is the most demanded, followed by the “Magic Stone” trail and the “Jameos del Agua” trail. This podium of high acceptance is followed by other fun itineraries such as “Haría-Bosquecillo”, “Volcán de la Corona”, “Guinate-Gayo”, “Volcán del Cuervo” or “Caletón Blanco”, among others.
On the website of the Aula de la Naturaleza you can access many of the educational resources developed by the different Areas and Services of the Cabildo (Lanzarote Geopark, Casa de los Volcanes, Lanzarote Recicla, etc). There they explain to us, for example, that “the Helechín Hedgehog is a very adventurous hedgehog that lives in the Cerca volcano, in the north of Lanzarote, next to the La Corona volcano. This friendly animal will become the protagonist and adventure companion of the boys and girls, along a path that will lead them to find their little house inside a volcano.”
On the other hand, the “Magic Stone” trail takes place in the Máguez area, in the municipality of Haría. The students discover there the story of María, a small and cheerful peasant woman who leads the boys and girls along a route where they will travel in time to learn about the ways of life, customs and traditions of our past linked to the development of agriculture, explore the various living beings and natural elements of the environment, until they find a mysterious Magic Stone at the end of the road.
