Extracurricular place of learning Biotopwildpark Anholter Schweiz

Experience nature in a “Swiss” setting. In memory of his honeymoon, Prince Leopold zu Salm-Salm built a replica of Lake Lucerne with a Swiss house and rocky landscape in Anholt. Today's biotope game park shows over 56 different animal species on an area of ​​approx. 50 hectares, many of which are also native to Germany or were once native to Germany. The one located in the wildlife park district learning workshop Borken offers nature-related excursions for school classes with different topics.

The learning workshop Biotopwildpark Anholter Schweiz will, as well as the learning workshop Naturparkhouse Tiergarten Schloss Raesfeld, in the design and implementation of their educational programs for school classes intensively from ESD regional center “Foundation for Nature and Landscape Westmünsterland' in Zwillbrock supports. The schools in the district Borken As a result, a comprehensive range of ESD training programs on different topics is available at three locations. Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) enables everyone to understand the impact of their own actions on the world and to make responsible decisions.

Topics of the educational events in the learning workshop:

Animal inhabitants

During a tour of the wildlife park, the students explore the physique and living conditions of animals and discover connections between living conditions and habitats. They exchange ideas about their observations, whereby both general and seasonally specific adaptations of the animals to environmental conditions can be in the foreground. The pupils are able to see animals and their special features with different eyes.

Behavior

With time and patience, the pupils carry out observation exercises on selected groups of animals with a specific focus (e.g. "social behavior" or "animal parents and animal children"). The advantages and disadvantages of different ways of life and rearing strategies are discussed.

petting zoo

The petting zoo area enables the pupils to interact directly with animals such as goats and donkeys. The direct contact with animals promotes the reduction of fears, increases the understanding for the needs of living beings and promotes the respect for nature as well as a careful handling of it.                          

Forest & soil animals

The Biotopwildpark Anholter Schweiz has many forest areas in which there is a lot to discover away from the animal enclosures. The pupils get to know the different characteristics of conifers and deciduous trees, learn why most conifers do not shed their leaves in autumn and what actually happens to the shed leaves of deciduous trees. They record the importance of soil organisms for the forest ecosystem, create a decomposition series and finally go in search of soil animals themselves, which they examine with a magnifying glass and identify with the help of index cards. In forest adventure games, the students experience nature with all their senses