Back to Nature at New Adventure Camp
OUTDOOR education organisation Camp Kernow has created the UK’s first carbon-neutral activity centre on a five-acre site near Malpas in Cornwall.
The new activity centre for children, which opens in July 2014, harnesses renewable energy and employs sustainable technology with the aim of offering children the experience of living in balance with nature.
The unique camp is located on 200 acres of organic farmland, featuring around 160,000 trees, ten lakes, freshwater streams and a convergence of three rivers. The new residential programmes at the site are due to last six days and include activities such as foraging, kayaking, wave power device-making, bushcraft and other adventures.
Charlie Nicholson, who founded the organisation, said: “The children are going to remember their week with us. We want to them to have so much fun learning about the environment. They are the next generation and we need them to be passionate about their world.”
The children will be able to learn how nature’s energy can be harnessed – the water they use is from a borehole, by energy from the sun and heated by burning timber from the surrounding land. Waste goes to composting toilets, reed beds for filtering or into a soakaway which benefits the orchard.
Mr Nicholson added: “All of the resources available to the children, apart from the majority of food, are from their surrounding environment. We want children to spend time away from the technology of screens and devices but to embrace sustainable technology. A good example is when we teach them to make fire with a flint and steel. They frequently tell us that they have done this in a video game but we teach them how to do this in real life.”
Camp Kernow has previously run courses at schools, hotels and youth groups. Now they can join the programmes at the purpose built site complete with a range of accommodation including yurts, tipis, geo-domes, bell tents and even an upturned boat hull.
