The Palace and the Environment

Nadarzyn News has two items in the April edition.

The park in Młochów

Works on renovation of the park in Młochów began in August last year. Supervised by the conservator of ancient monuments, the park was cleared of excessive growth and unwanted self-sown plants. The three arch bridge was restored, ponds were cleaned of mud, the existing brick wall was renewed and extended to surround almost all of the rest of the park . Lamps have been installed in part of the park and the first paths are now hardening. There is still a lot to do, but it has to the summer to be finished. The contractor is FLISBUD Building and Assembly Works, who will look after the care of the plants under care guarantee for the following year.

The Palace and two Pavilions: click here for more photos

The front end of the park

Ecological activities - a meeting with a forest warden in the Public Nursery School in Młochów

Care for the natural environment is an all-important part of our work with the children in our nursery school. We teach children to respect nature, we sensitise them to her beauty and we make them realise the necessity of her care and protection.

To help children love and respect nature, we organize a series of activities each year on environmental education to ensure that children have direct contact with nature through walks, excursions, observations and personal activity. One way we have of increasing understanding of nature is periodic meetings with a forester warden. Our nursery school entertained one of the workers of the Chojnów Forest Inspectorate Service on 27 February. He came to the meeting in official uniform, bringing many interesting and little well-known things with him eg. a 'klupe' – an instrument for measuring the girth of trees, and a device by which foresters measure a tree's height. Children listened with interest to stories about the types of trees met in our forests and about the life of its inhabitants. Without difficulty, the pre-school children recognized well known trees shown on coloured boards: beech, oak, maple, lime, rowan, ash, spruce.

Fascinating for the children (and all of us) was to learn that the sound of a dog barking in the forest, might actually be the call of a male roe-deer. During the meeting the children improved their knowledge of the lives of beavers. They learnt a great deal, eg that beavers cut logs to build dams, and they build mounds called beaver lodges from branches and mud. The tail of a beaver is called a trowel, which, by splashing, serves as a rudder to control the depth of immersion. Beavers also use tails to communicate between themselves: splashing the tail warns other beavers of danger. The children were delighted to hear the description of the tusks of the wild boar (the pipe and sabre) and the end of its snout (the snuff-box). The forester said a lot to children about the behaviour of different forest animals (roe-deer, red deer, squirrels) and birds that are seen in the winter. During the session, they children enriched their knowledge of tits (great, blue and crested). They also learnt of two birds whose favourite dainty is the seed from pine-cones: the hawfinch and crossbill.

Children had time to look at and touch the exhibits that were placed around the the room. Among them were insect traps designed to assess the number of the chosen insects in the habitat, a stag's antlers, the bark of a spruce with channels made by the bark beetle, imprints of the hooves of wild boar, roe-deer and squirrels... During the session, children asked questions and showed a lot of interest in the subject. Finally, all of the children gave the leader of the activity a small, personally drawn picture of winter birds, and every child was given a set of ecological coloured pencils. The next activity will take place at the Chojnów Forest Inspectorate educational footpath.