La Casita Verde
Each school visit to Casita Verde hosts up to 15 students and lasts 2 and a half hours.
After the arrival and recepcion of the participants, the visits have two parts, with a break for refreshments between them.
First part
Descovering Nature's cycles
The Eco-Toilet
We start by discover how a composting toilet works. Instead of treating excrement and urine as waste and send them to be managed somewhere far away and also using valuable drinking water each time we pull the chain!, this eco-toilet transforms the organic material we deposit in it into a rich and nutritious compost, producing 1 cubic metre of valuable natural plant food every 4-6 months! Who is responsible for this small miracle? It is the MICROORGANISMS which appear spontaneously and get to work when we provide them with the necessary conditions: wet organic matter (excrements and urine), dry organic matter (sawdust) and darkness. This is one of the important cycles in Nature that can teach us better ways to deal with our waste.
The cycle of Water
We need water for many daily activities (cooking, washing, drinking...), and we can obtain it by recovering the rainwater. Here we discover how Casita Verde collects this valuable resource, from roofs and directly from the mountain into our large tank which retains up to 80 thousand litres of water. A short excursion to the higher part of the hill allows visitors to see how we recover the maximum water we can, and in descending we discover where and how this water is used throughout the centre. Also, by using biodegradable soaps we can re-use gray waters to water the plants! Here is something we can do at home that may cost a little extra but has great savings for the environment.
The Sun cycle
Plant leaves are perfect little solar panels! as they transform the Sun's energy into life force. Us humans
Thermal solar panel: uses the heat of the Sun to heat up water. An excelent way of saving energy and money is to install these panels for domestic hot water supply.
Photovoltaic solar panel: converts the sunlight into electricity, which we can then use directly to make our electrical appliances work - like the fountain at Casita Verde! -, or we can store in batteries to be used later...
Parabolic solar panel: concentrates the heat of the Sun on one single spot, and can be used for example for cooking... without any expense of fuel nor electricity!
Separating for recycling
A small test of the recycling abilities of our young visitors... In pairs, they have to correctly separate a whole range of items - remembering that some of them can be re-used before binning them!
Second part
Guardians of the Planet, on a mission!
Not all of us can afford to capture the Sun's energy with panels or to have composting toilets at home... But we can all carry out small daily actions that do not imply any expense, just our commitment and some attention to detail!
This part of the visit begins with a talk about the concept of "ecological footprint": it is individual, can be measured and therefore can be reduced. Reducing our ecological footprint is within reach of every one of us - we will discover how through an adventure game!
Dividided into five teams, the game takes us through different areas of the centre, that represent places students know in their daily lives.
The Areas
Within each space, participants have to find the clues to at least 5 ways of saving energy and resources, which will allow them to access the next space.
Once the mission is completed, we will have a list of at least 20 ways of saving energy every day, free and easy to carry out for youngsters.
A sheet is given to each participant, to be filled out voluntarily in class with help from the teachers, which is like a "contract" signed by the students according to which they commit to fulfilling AT LEAST ONE of the actions on the list that they are NOT already doing in their daily life. This means a new eco-commitment with the environment for each of them, following the main idea that drives the Guardians of the Planet:
Enjoy the planet! ... while caring for it...
