Bath Spa University Echoes Project

ECHOES Devon Schools Learning Project.

During Spring term 2022, the IIH participated in a pilot project with music therapist Dr Jane Tarr and University researcher Dr Nick Clough.  Together we wove research themes and practices into our woodland sessions. We explored communicative musicality, earth walking and earth keeping, learning through global partnerships, dialogic teaching and learning and listening to nature. Our findings are to be published in a report which will feed into the Bath Spa ECHOES project later this year. This report will be shared with colleagues in the wider ECHOES project to inform them about best practice in learning in/through/about nature and biodiversity through music and the arts.  

 

The highlight of our work together was a visit from Kennedy, a Zimbabwean musician.  He came to the woodland and celebrated with collaborative music making, traditional songs and playing woodland games.  We loved hearing about how children's well being is supported by Kennedy's cultural values and saw how much the principles are reflected in the IIH.

 

Later in the year, the IIH plan to work with Amanda Bayley, Professor of Music at Bath Spa University, who is the research lead on the proposed project: Reflexive ECHOES: Listening to the Land and Sea (where ECHOES stands for Earth, Culture, Heritage and Ocean for Education and Sustainability).  The project is currently applying for funding through the Arts and Humanities Council.  The ECHOES Devon Schools Learning Project aims to explore learning about, in and for nature and biodiversity through music and the arts and to begin to engage in partnership with the Trees of Hope project in Zimbabwe (www.treesofhopezim.com).