For kids and youth, there are lots of exciting ways to take the fun and discovery of earth adventures even further. Check out the possibilities below under the following categories:

• Adventures, Camps and Leadership Training
• School-Based Education Programs
• Books and Websites

Sorry, but all you older folks can only drool over the opportunities below. However, Hike Nova Scotia offers great day-long workshops called Reconnecting with Nature, on how adults can facilitate magical experiences to re-connect kids and youth with nature each year. Check out the Reconnecting with Nature Facebook group which updates various opportunities in the regions.

Adventure Camps and Leadership Training

Sunship^TM Earth

Residential Summer Camp, ages 10-12

A week-long adventure offered every other summer that combines the magic, beauty and fun of a great residential camp with exciting hands-on learning, as we journey through the stars on our sunship. There are neat natural explorations, dramatic and fun characters, and challenging ecological adventures, plus canoeing, swimming, campfires and fun with new friends. It is run in the last two weeks of July through the Halifax Adventure Earth Centre. Sunship^TM Earth includes leadership training opportunities for young people, ages 14 to 18.

Explorers

Summer Residential/Wilderness Camp, ages 11-13

An action-packed week of exploration and discovery in the outdoors run by the Halifax Adventure Earth Centre and offered every other summer. The environmental wisdom of the wild creatures taught through an inspirational, epic story across the week, guides the young explorers as they canoe, camp out and enjoy the company of new friends. The first half of the week is spent in a base camp, exploring the wild area nearby and learning the outdoor skills required for wilderness camping and canoeing. The second half of the week is spent trying out these new skills.

LEAD: Leadership and Environmental Adventure

Residential Camp, ages 13-14

A Halifax Adventure Earth Centre yearly adventure about leadership, discovery and making a difference for the earth. For five days, young people work as a team, travelling through old enchanted forests, learning from each other, and sharing interests and stories around the campfire. Through games, challenges, outdoor experiences and meeting inspirational people, participants learn the skills to make a difference back home. Come join us, and bring a friend, as you paddle silently on a beautiful lake, tumble through leaves, laugh, sing and share as a team.

Nova Scotia Young Naturalists Club

This free club helps children 8 years old and up to connect with nature in a fun and informative way through hands-on experiences and interactions with mentors and experts in natural history. In monthly meetings at the Museum of Natural History in Halifax, they hear from engaging speakers about fascinating nature-related topics, and gain instruction in skills such as how to use a field guide. Club members go on expert-led hikes to nearby wild areas with opportunities for developing observation, identification, and environmental stewardship skills.

Flying Squirrel Adventures

Flying Squirrel Adventures is a free, outdoor nature program for young and old in the Kentville Ravine in the heart of the Annapolis Valley. It helps facilitate learning about nature IN nature by bringing people together to learn, share, and explore. We will help you connect with nature and a community of nature lovers through games, activities, challenges, discussions, presentations, workshops and more! It runs simultaneous monthly afternoon programs for kids and adults. Flying squirrels are active all through the year, and are very social and hang out with a group. Just like us!

School-Based and Group Earth Education Programs

Cycle Savers

Grade 4/Grades 11 & 12 for Leadership (Halifax)

Students decipher the lost manual of the “Cycle Savers Club” at school, which launches them on an intriguing adventure to appreciate, understand and respect the cycles of life through an action-packed day trip to a local park. The final challenge occurs back home where they act to reduce the impact of their households on the soil, air and water cycles. Cycle Savers is run in May at multiple sites across the Halifax region with the support of the Halifax Adventure Earth Centre.

Mysterious Encounters—Earth

Grade 5/Grades 11 & 12 for Leadership (Halifax)

A hands-on adventure based on the mystery theme of tracking down the secret formula for all life. The students become detectives and go to the ends of the earth (figuratively) to solve their case. Mysterious Encounters—Earth is a four-week curriculum centred around a one-day outdoor trip run through the Halifax Adventure Earth Centre in the Halifax region each spring.

Planet Protectors

Primary to Grade 3 (Annapolis Valley)

Using the theme of time travel involving an astronaut returning from the future, this field trip program to Valley Waste Resource Management provides children with the wonderful opportunity to learn how to reduce impacts on the Earth and facilitate a better future. Through this process, they see how our community is recycling, reducing and dealing with waste and they learn more about nature, the soil and decomposition cycles and waste management.