Education and Communities

Our education division continued in full force throughout the year. During the lockdowns and periods with restrictions, we operated online, and between lockdowns, we led outdoor activities, summer day camps, family hikes, instructor trainings, and more.

This complex time also afforded us many opportunities. The choice to continue important educational activities required organization and adaptation across the organization, and the results speak for themselves. There is no doubt that educational hikes were significantly impacted during the COVID-19 year; multi-day hikes did not take place at all, and are not likely to resume in the near future, but our educational work has not stopped. Instead, we have moved in new directions. Here are our main ones, from north to south:

Eastern Galilee Field Study Center

Due to COVID-19, our Shinshinim from the field study center volunteered in Kiryat Shmona, by taking children to the nearby Zahav Stream, through a city-wide program for idle children and youth, and even helped renovate a playground for a special-needs preschool. Our energetic Shinshinim ran about 100 hands-on sessions on environmental education as part of the summer school program. The project “Connected to Nature” was launched this summer in the neighborhoods of Kiryat Shmona, and 200 residents participated in the afternoon meetings run by our Shinshinim.

Beit Ussishkin Museum

The archaeological section of the building underwent a significant renovation and was reopened to the public in mid-June. During the summer, nearly 3,000 people visited the museum. Since the beginning of the second lockdown, the museum has been closed. The museum took part in a regional cultural activity, “The Village Mouse”. At other times, the entire staff of the museum and the field study center led instructional sessions and hosted many seniors’ groups. Schools from the region came for full-day (five hour) activities in the museum and outdoor area. Likewise, a plan to upgrade the second part of the building – the zoological section – has been prepared, and we are in the midst of a fundraising campaign to implement the upgrade.

Golan and Hermon Field School

During the summer, the field school held diverse activities as part of the summer school program. These included walking tours for the general public on the peak of Mt. Hermon (in cooperation with the Mt. Hermon ski site), tours of the “Battle Hills” (where battles took place during the Yom Kippur War in 1973), and hikes to the hidden springs of the Golan Heights, which we explored together with hikers from throughout the country. The Golan and Hermon Field School staff participated in salvage excavations performed by the Antiquities Authority near Hispin.

Western Galilee Field Study Center

During the COVID-19 period, the junior staff underwent additional training and became an environmental education patrol: educational programs and new hiking routes, based on the local nature near our schools, were developed to replace the banned hiking program. Different programs were adapted and restructured. In the summer, a group of Experienced Stream Keepers in Mateh Asher was established, and during the lockdowns, the younger group joined the effort to help different communities in Ma’alot and Shlomi.

In the Haifa community, SPNI instructors ran distance-learning programs for a number of schools in the city, and environmental education continued at full capacity as part of the summer school program. Thousands visited information booths about litter prevention and the range of other activities led by the Rosh Carmel marine community.

In the Hadera community, environmental education activities took place as part of the summer school program, as well as in preschools. On the 23rd Knesset Election Day, thousands of people participated in a “Shark Day” activity.

Hof HaCarmel Field School

During 2020, the field school crossed geographical borders. Not only did the field school endure the COVID-19 crisis, it also expanded its client community:

Multi-participant professional training sessions took place, encompassing guide training, a professional birding course, and lectures for seniors, all through distance learning.
Environmental education throughout the council’s region was expanded and upgraded, including research programs in urban nature sites, and forest days as an alternative for 5th-6th graders, instead of distance learning.
A alt-reality walking route was created for urban nature sites in regional councils.
We ran Zoom classes about nature and birding topics during all the lockdowns.
We opened a birding club for youth that met monthly.
Activities for the general public were expanded, entailing an enormous amount of birding tours, workshops on ancient crafts, and family hikes on Mt. Carmel, as well as expanded activities in the periods between lockdowns.
As in previous years, a birding course for guides and amateur birders took place in the Ma’agan Michael Birding Center, for guiding there and gaining in-depth knowledge. Because of COVID-19, we were forced to run the course over Zoom. This change led to the largest-ever enrollment – about 90 participants registered, including the younger staff at other field schools, as well as people from all around the country.
The field school’s Facebook group sustained its engagement level, providing relevant content for children’s activities, studying nature outdoors, and using nature wisely.

Arab community

For the first time, a 2-hour bird ringing session was broadcast live in Arabic, and was watched in preschools and in homes. We also began a green map project called “There is Heritage and Nature in the Village”, with an emphasis on holy sites in Druze villages, in collaboration with the Religious Council and the Druze Heritage Center. Likewise, we began a new project with the Ma’ar Local Council to establish a heritage-based, environmental walking trail.

More than eight proposals were submitted in the Arab neighborhoods, where we work to instill sustainable values in the communities, in collaboration with local municipalities in the country’s north and center and the Ministry for Environmental Protection.

Environmental education and hiking groups with children from the different communities began before the COVID-19 pandemic and continued throughout it, with diverse, interactive activities using Zoom.

Seminars for youth took place, including workshops on social and environmental leadership; each seminar lasted five days, and the children gained instructional skills, participated in nature conservation activity days outdoors, and planned environmental days.

About a dozen adult groups regularly hiked between the Galilee and Mt. Carmel, and between the beaches and the valleys.

Modi’in community

With the help of our wonderful shinshinim, the community set up field workshops during the summer, for the city’s children on Cypress Hill. The workshops dealt with birding and camping, and were a great success. In total, 46 workshops were run for the city’s children, and an environmental education program was run for all of the city’s 5th- and 6th-graders in 250 “pods”. SPNI also ran activities for children during the summer vacation in Yehud. During the lockdown, the community organized many games and quizzes in the Facebook groups.

Greater Tel Aviv community

This community ran workshops via Zoom for secondary students in ORT schools, and hikes in urban nature for preschool children in Tel Aviv, Herzliya, and Ramat HaSharon. Independent “treasure hunts” were held for 1,000 participants in Yarkon Park and Drezner Grove – all within the limitations of the COVID-19 restrictions! Lantern tours took place towards the end of the year, at Chanukah. Courses for activists took place throughout the year via Zoom.

Jerusalem community

During the year, the community ran a new activity for middle-school students, guided by the teaching staff, and produced materials for distance learning and activities outside of class. Activities were also run for the teaching staff.

In the public domain, the seniors’ environmental group of Mevaseret Zion is working on developing and nurturing the source of Arza Stream and turning it into an urban nature site for the benefit of the city’s residents. The community is very active through Facebook, demonstrations, and walking tours when permitted, and also provides professional guidance to the youth-led group “Saving the Jerusalem Hills”.

At Levi Eshkol House, we hosted the Director of the Ministry of Education and groups of soldiers and teachers at the beginning of the year, but following the COVID-19 outbreak, the house sadly was closed for a while. In the summer, we were able to open it for a short period for tourists who visited the city, and at the beginning of this year, we trained three new national service girls, with hopes of reopening soon.

Ofra Field School

Despite COVID-19 difficulties, the field school staff was able to engage thousands of school children on hundreds of activity days, as part of the summer school program.

Collaboration with the Jordan River Regional Council funded a project manager position for environmental education initiatives.

During Chanukah, about 4,500 people hiked with us in the Hasmonean palaces and the Jordan Valley race. And in December, we ran 227 hikes through the youth project, in collaboration with the Ministry of Higher Education.

Shikmim Field School

Before the pandemic, we ran educational walking tours throughout the region and a few summit days for schools. After the COVID-19 outbreak, the field school staff focused on recreational activity, taking nature-loving hikers into nature, both near and far from their homes.

Throughout the year, we exposed hikers of all ages to nature conservation issues regarding the Great Dune in Ashdod, through experiential educational walking tours. We also took hundreds of participants on lantern tours throughout the region, and ran publicity activities and many walking tours as part of the cleanup project, in collaboration with the Ministry of Higher Education. Likewise, we worked hard on training, managing, and coordinating courses, on campuses, and on internal and external continuing education programs given by the adult staff of the Shikmim Field School.

Between these activities, the field school staff collaborated extensively with INPA, in observing, surveying, and releasing sea turtles. The staff also ran an information booth at Nitzanim Beach and at the groundwater ponds (Nitzanim Lake).

We had the pleasure of hosting the Director of the Ministry of Higher Education and his staff. The guides of Shikmim Field School gained valuable experience by delivering their first instructional session to them, and garnered praise and compliments!

Be’er Sheva community

The community developed a new program with the school principals in the Education Department. Sha’ar HaNegev Field School joined the city’s ongoing environmental education programs. The community activity focused mainly on litter prevention.

Har HaNegev Field School

The field school staff, which specializes in teaching astronomy and the use of telescopes, played a major role in teaching astronomy throughout the summer. A six-day event was held in collaboration with the Ministry of Science, during which astronomy activities and scorpion tours were held for all the region’s visitors each evening.

The field school staff also ran a campaign against moving factories to the Oron Industrial Zone, and helped to mark trails and clear obstructions together with INPA.

The guides met thousands of people while leading families throughout the Negev and teaching school children through environmental education programs. Within the community, we participated in the Science Center’s Geopark course, which aims to connect the audience to the crater region.

Eilat Field School

Despite the difficulties, Eilat Field School had a year of successes and breakthroughs:

We identified the hotels’ difficulties to provide content to their guests, and advertised instructional sessions and lantern tours.
We identified the need of Eilat families for children’s activities in late August and organized day camps for local children at the field school for the first time.
We established a set of organized hikes and activities for the community and guests in Eilat, and ran more than one hundred events between lockdowns.
We opened a WhatsApp group for hikes and activities, which attracted more than 200 members. In parallel, we opened a Facebook group in May that now has more than 1,000 members.
We ran Zoom activities and environmental education activities in schools and preschools, and instructional sessions in schools as part of the summer school program, with great success.
We held virtual tours of nature sites with the Eilat Tourism Corporation.
We faced the challenges of nature conservation. The hottest topic at the moment is the gas and crude oil pipeline, and the field school staff led a Zoom event on this issue with more than 160 participants.
We offered diving education lectures in the One Star Diver course, to teach about being a nature-conserving diver.
We hosted webinars on the intertidal zone in collaboration with WildDive, an international diving company.

Training

The fact that instructor training continued throughout 2020 is noteworthy. The process included recruitment, induction and training sessions all while remaining adaptable and flexible, as necessitated by the COVID-19 rules and restrictions that were continually evolving.

The “Big Girls” course for second- and third-year girls in the field school took place just before taking on the junior teams: there were five days of content, enrichment, professional training, and preparation for leading and receiving the new groups in the field units.

Sadly, the soldier teachers left the units shortly afterwards and were sent on military tasks, as part of the ‘Ela’ unit that was set up for epidemiological investigations. We hope that they return soon.

Just before the second lockdown, we managed to run a limited environmental education course for graduate female instructors in the community.

In addition, the entire junior cohort (of shinshinim and national service girls) was trained in environmental education instruction, which included familiarity with the philosophy of environmental education, experiential and extracurricular learning, classroom management, and more.

In the Arab community, 15 girls from different areas in the country’s north and center participated in an environmental education instructors’ course in December. Training sessions were also held for coordinators and administrative staff, to raise awareness among instructors, and to update managers. In addition, three new Standards Association guiding courses opened – one in the north, one in the center, and one in the south.

Teacher Training Program

We began the 2019-20 academic year with 50 continuing education programs for schools and 13 such programs for preschools, including 1,250 school teachers and about 300 preschool teachers. A similar number of continuing education and preschool teachers are benefitting from a second year of guidance. The integrators staff includes 35 employees, including five coordinators who are also integrators in practice. Like all of SPNI, the staff is a tapestry of Israeli society – secular, religious, ultra-orthodox, Jewish, Muslim, Druze and Christian, urban and rural, central and peripheral.

COVID-19 caught us at the height of our ongoing education programs and implementation processes in preschools and schools, and towards the end of the annual training program, which incidentally focused on urban nature. With intensive efforts, the staff was able to create a database of adapted online ongoing educational programs, approved by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry for Environmental Protection, accessible and available for participants. Immediately after the Pesach break, SPNI’s entire training team returned to work. The sharp, rapid transition, while shifting all staff to an online work environment, enabled us to achieve 100% of our objectives for the continuing education program, without affecting its quality.

Hiking groups

The hiking groups faced an especially challenging year. In the formal education system, it was possible to conduct distance learning through Zoom, hold activities in and around school yards, and go on excursions between lockdowns; however, informal education, which does not work according to the structure of the formal education system, was severely restricted.

Towards the end of the 2019-20 school year, following the blanket ban on hiking activities in informal education, we appealed to the High Court against this decision, which allowed us to run weekly meetings and daily hikes.

Until the imposition of the restrictions, at the very last minute, we managed to complete a junior instructors’ course and an advanced instructors’ course, against all odds and in accordance with the restrictions.

At the beginning of the current school year, the guidelines for informal education have unfortunately not been updated. Even when they were updated, they only permitted activity in pods, which greatly restricts activity.

But despite everything, we remained active throughout the entire period: in activities, meetings and camps (!) that took place via Zoom, family hikes that took place together with the children’s parents, and other creative activities that helped us keep in touch and move forward.

Haifa hiking groups

As part of a collaboration with the Trail Marking Committee, a wadi survey took place in which hiking groups forged a trail, installed signage, and built terraces. In addition, as part of the salamander project in the Haifa Zoo, the staff participated in the rehabilitation of the salamander ponds and raised awareness of the issue within the general public.

Southern hiking groups

Our staff volunteered at Neot Lon school, where the children enjoyed an event about nature and the hiking groups helped bring a hands-on element to formal education.

Jerusalem hiking groups

A hike at Shluchat Shayarot and training sessions were held in the lead-up to National Clean-up Day. A training session about the use of track plates for monitoring animals was held as part of the ecological survey project. Likewise, an online birding course took place for hiking group members at the national level.

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