Nature guide by children for all Halle residents

For a year, we regularly explored the Peißnitz Island with Nele Klimmer to give children aged 8-12 the opportunity to develop a nature guide for the green island in the Saale River. The children, working in small groups, closely examined various animal and plant species on the Peißnitz and then used the collected information and images to create a page of the Halle nature guide dedicated to our Peißnitz. A total of 30 animals and plants are featured in the guide. On your next walk, take a closer look around!

How did the project come about? Read here about what we experienced during the first session in the autumn holidays of 2023:

Mute Swan, Dewworm, Blackberry and Co - Who and what lives on the Peißnitz?

Day 1

Excursion to the Peißnitz
We get to know a plant species and find it for our nature guide, research and photograph it and collect all the information.

Day 2

Creative work on the computer and tablets
In the Krokoseum's media workshop, our information is put onto a book page.

How were your holidays? Did you see and notice how autumn changed nature during the holidays? Some birds migrated south (we heard cranes and geese flying over our heads), the leaves turned yellow to red, the temperatures dropped, but we had the best sunny weather for our excursions on the Peißnitz.

So we packed our rucksacks, which were full of beaker magnifiers, pipettes, pH test strips, tablets and microscopes. Then we cycled to the beautiful Peißnitz near the city centre. Our lan was to find five animal and plant species on the Peißnitz during these days. Shortly after we arrived at the Peißnitz, it wasn't long before our animal species could already be seen: Numerous mallards - why are they actually called "mallards?" - were swimming happily on the water of the fountain basin and the large, strong mute swans were also part of the party. The fact that the mute swans are not called mute swans because they like to perch on stools was given away by their distinctive black hump above their orange beaks. And, of course, we were lucky enough to see a young swan swimming alongside the swans, whose beak and plumage were still grey and which had no hump over its beak.

Some other species, such as the earthworm, were not so happy on the surface of the meadow. And he shouldn't swim in water or puddles either. It would suffocate there because it breathes through its skin. Instead, we found the earthworm, or more correctly called the dewworm, carefully digging in the loosened soil of a molehill. Underneath was a small worm, about 5 cm long, when suddenly a thick, long specimen crawled over a child's shoe. When we measured it - luckily dew worms are not the fastest - we came up with 20 cm! A marvellous specimen that can now be found on the cover of our first book.

Be sure to join us next time!