Highlights
- Connecting children to nature and educating them on how to benefit the environment, taking a holistic approach to work with schools to transform their culture.
- Have facilitated awards for schools, to recognise the environmental efforts of pupils and to celebrate
the success of outdoor education initiatives. - The spaces The Alba Explorers create within the school grounds become havens for
wellbeing. - The staff training is accredited.
- Projects with the children include harvesting food for school farmers’ markets.
The Alba Explorers, headquartered in Brechin, are transforming the educational landscape by integrating survival skills, biodiversity projects, and conservation techniques into their curriculum. This pioneering approach equips children with the essential skills and knowledge needed to forge a sustainable and profound impact on societal attitudes towards the environment. Driven by a deep-seated passion for nature, this family-run business is committed to instilling a sense of environmental stewardship in the next generation and the community at large. Their dynamic and captivating programmes have gained full acceptance and enthusiasm from participants.
Offering a comprehensive outdoor education program, the Alba Explorer caters to a diverse clientele throughout the North-East of Scotland. Recognising an underserved need, the business provides bespoke activities including pupil development sessions focused on survival skills and conservation, staff CPD sessions, development of outdoor spaces, and the design of specialised projects, each tailored to enhance engagement and learning.
Key to the ethos of the business is that key to the aim is a belief that by educating children, The Alba Explorers are helping create a long-term, sustainable impact on society's attitudes towards the environment and climate change and providing skills to future leaders.
The feedback from the young people who engage with The Alba Explorers sums the experience up the best, “the session made my brain explode seeing all that we could do by ourselves.”
Headline figures: Within 4 years The Alba Explorers have delivered sessions to over 1500 young people, trained 230 members of school staff, help build 9 ponds, planted over 1000 trees, helped develop 7 school gardens and brought conversations relating to waste, transport, greenhouse gas emissions into the conversations of young people and communities.
"We are grateful to have won the VIBES Service Scotland award. We feel strongly about our additive and enhancing approach to nature over other reductive approaches. We want to improve the environment by increasing biodiversity, supporting healthy habitats, and planting and growing all manner of living things with our pupils. We are committed to reaching and inspiring the younger generations as our future leaders of tomorrow. What they learn today, they can champion in the years to come. This VIBES award will only help us extend our reach and impact." Hannah Lynch, Business Development Manager, The Alba Explorers
The Service Scotland Award recognises businesses that have developed a service that brings environmental and business benefits. At the time of the application the service must have been developed and in the marketplace.