Two schools of Urdaibai will participate in late march in the World Osprey Week that will be held in Rutland Water (England)

After two years of intense schoolwork around osprey, two schools of Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve: Montorre (Gautegiz Arteaga) and Urretxindorra (Muxika), participate in a global network that links schools of all over the world around the migration of ospreys in a global project called "Ospreys Flyways linking communities". Both schools are involved in this project of environmental education led by the Urdaibai Bird Center, which provides advice to schools for teaching, technical and logistical support through the implementation of an osprey environmental education plan in Urdaibai.

This partnership will finish in the last week of March, coinciding with the arrival of the first ospreys to Europe after wintering in Africa. In this context, Rutland Water (Leicester), the wetland where the first osprey raised in England after 150 years (2001), holds an event of international character with the schools attached to the project. During this week, different activities and experiences related with the osprey will be presented by schools from Scotland, Italy, Finland, Estonia, North America, Britain and Spain that have developed over the last year. http://www.ospreys.org.uk/wow-interactive-schools-map/

Map of the schools attached to the project and satellite-tagged Ospreys routes (in blue). Black coloured return movements undertaken by the Ospreys (to March 15).

The use of new bird monitoring technologies and in particular satellite tracking of some individuals of this species provides a tool of great scientific and educational interest for researchers and teachers, as it allows to follow the life journey of each one of the eagles tagged with these devices in their migratory journeys, knowing about the different countries crossed and opening a vast field for experimental teaching in schools with application to different subjects in the school curriculum (Geography, ecology, mathematics, language immersion , application of new technologies, internet, etc..).

Presentation video of Urretxindorra school (Muxika)

Presentation video of Montorre school (Gautegiz Arteaga)

This first World Osprey Week (WOW), http://www.ospreys.org.uk/world-osprey-week/ will be held between March 24th and 28th. The main event this week, will be led by the participating schools in the project called “Osprey flyways, linking communities”, as they will share different audiovisual materials with other schools in the network. In this case, the students of both schools in the Basque Country have sent great video works, recorded and produced by themselves in which they introduce their town, school and the work they have done around the Ospreys to the others. In this sense, this Saturday march 29th, Montorre and Urretxindorra schools will make a connection by Skype with other schools that are participating in the project in order to establish a connection with other realities and cultures joined around the osprey's flyways in hole planet.

The 2014 program of the World Osprey Week

Currently it is developing an environmental education program around the osprey financed by the Environmental Department of the Basque Government, which it sphere of activity will be all the Basque Country and which will have as main objectives to use the osprey's migration as educational tool, to encourage the knowledge of languages and to support logistically the recovery project in the Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve.

Junkung Jadama, coordinator of the schools in Gambia, showing the landscapes and social environment of the school who work together with the schools of Montorre and Urretxindorra (Original music of Unai Egia)