On Friday, 1st December, 2000, twenty nine students from Sinethemba S.S. travelled to the Zeekoevlei Wetland for a weekend's camping, under the auspices of the Zeekoevlei Environmental Education Project (ZEEP).

ZEEP was formed this year to educate primarily students about environmental issues.  It will be part of the Rondevlei Nature Reserve (RNR) set-up, and will therefore be looking at environmental education in the Rondevlei Reserve as a whole.  The itinerary of the weekend was entirely designed by twelve educators (with input from Bevan Lill, ZEEP Project Manager) who were part-way through a fortnight's selection process to work for ZEEP as educators full time.  It was the first camp for ZEEP and as such was an opportunity for the ZEEP educators to apply what they had learnt, as well as being being part of their selection process.

The twenty nine students were split into two groups, with one group spending the Friday night and Saturday morning at the newly built ZEEP premises at Zeekoevlei, and the rest of Saturday and early Sunday morning on Rondevlei, camping on Saturday night on an island within Rondevlei Nature Reserve.  The second group did the same thing but the other way round.  The two groups met up again late morning on Sunday.

The photos below are only of events at Zeekoevlei; there are unfortunately no photos of events at Rondevlei.

On the Friday evening the first group was split into two subgroups.  Each subgroup named itself then designed and made a flag that a) had its name on, and b) highlighted conservation issues.  One group called itself "Appreciate the Creation" and the other "Aliens".  The two flags were judged by the educators.

Judging the flags

After the flag-making there was a night walk in RNR where birds and insects were seen, identified and discussed.  During the walk there was an astronomy talk by one of the educators which involved constellation identification.

On Saturday morning Aliens and Appreciate the Nature each built a raft using empty barrels, planks of wood and rope.  Or at least they attempted to: both rafts unfortunately disintegrated when they were launched, so a joint effort was made which was successful.  

Building the rafts

Second attempt

On the water

And in the water

On Saturday evening the second group, now at Zeekoevlei, were split into two groups which competed against each other in a general knowledge quiz.  The quiz caught the imagination of the students who took part very enthusiastically.

Quiz on Saturday

ZEEP had a canoe which students and staff both used to explore Zeekoevlei:

Belemane Semoli, SAEP Fellow, on the water.

On Sunday morning the two groups met up again and walked through Rondevlei Nature Reserve to the beach on False Bay near Muizenberg, where they relaxed and played football before returning to Zeekoevlei for lunch and and evaluation session.
There were twelve educators in total working with the students:

The educators

At the evaluation session each student was presented with a certificate of attendance by Bevan Lill, the ZEEP Project Manager, and the students were given the opportunity to say what they thought of the weekend and what for them were its highs and lows.

Bevan Lill, ZEEP Project Manager, and Mziwonke Mboneli, SAEP intern, handing out certificates

Evaluation on Sunday afternoon

Group photo of the students on the trip

Conclusions

The purpose of the weekend, for SAEP, was to continue to expose students at Sinethemba S.S. to, and educate them about, their South African environment.  From this point of view, the weekend was a big success: the students quite obviously enjoyed themselves and also learnt more about the South African environment, its importance and threats to it.  For many, the highlight was sleeping on the island 'under the stars', (although for some this was the low point!) while others said they got more out of the night walk.
The students acted as guinea pigs for ZEEP and helped the selection process to identify the educators ZEEP want to employ full-time.  From this point of view also the weekend was a success.
Inevitably, there were teething problems, both for  ZEEP (whose first camp it was) and for SAEP (whose first residential excursion it was).  But, these were no more than teething problems, easily solved, and overall the weekend was a definite success.