Kapraluv mlyn Scout Environmental Education Centre

Kapraluv mlyn Scout Environmental Education Centre is a unit of the national Czech Scout organization called Junák – Czech Scout. Our mission is to educate children and youth to love and respect nature, to develop knowledge, skills and attitudes that lead to environmentally responsible behaviour. We rely on elements of the Scout method and the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM) environmental protection program. To fulfil its mission, we operate the international scout centre for ecological education Kapraluv mlyn in the southern part of the Moravian Karst. The centre underwent complete reconstruction in 2011-12 leading to a model of the eco-friendly building (low-energy construction standard, solar panels, heat pump, recuperation of air and wastewater). The building itself is a laboratory and textbook of environmentally friendly operation. Students and other visitors can verify the effectiveness of particular eco-technologies in practice. The Kapraluv mlyn is situated in one of the most valuable parts of the Protected Landscape Area and serves as a perfect starting point for exploration of the area‘s unique natural and cultural heritage. A few minutes walk from Kapraluv mlyn there is a varied mosaic of habitats: from oak and beeches groves through steppes with rare Mediterranean species to watercourses and caves. The main target group are students and young people from the Czech Republic and abroad. During the spring and autumn, we run environmental education courses for high school (16 - 19 years of age) and primary school (12 - 15 years of age) students, in the winter we offer programs focused on environmentally friendly technologies. We try to connect formal and non-formal education in our activities, we use the principles of inquiry-based education and elements of the scout educational method. On weekends and holidays, scout and other non-profit organizations use the mill's facilities. We host international events several times a year. During the holidays, scouts from abroad camp in the meadows around the mill, Kapraluv mlyn is thus a genuine meeting place for different cultures. Volunteering has been an integral part of Kapraluv mlyn since the 1990s when the mill was handed over for use to Brno scouts. Volunteers worked thousands of hours at the mill, without their involvement a complete reconstruction of the building would not be possible. In the last 8 years, thanks to European Voluntary Service and European Solidarity Corps, we have been able to host long-term volunteers and spread our know-how to various European countries. As a centre of ecological education, we try not only to educate children and young people to love nature but also to practically take care of its protection. With volunteers, we take care of rare species of plants on the nearby steppe locality, we help to build toad fences along roads to save pond-breeding amphibians during their spring migration, we take care of caves in the Říčka valley in cooperation with the Administration of the Moravian Karst Protected Landscape Area (PLA) and participate in a number of other projects of partner organizations in the area. Thanks to new nature conservation management projects, volunteers also work on conservation work outside the Moravian Karst - for example in the Pálava PLA or at in the Pouzdřanská step - Kolby National Nature Monument. For residents of the surrounding villages, we organize Open Days with a guided tour of environmentally friendly technologies, we offer to tourists the opportunity to stop by and have a snack and rest under our shelter. Children from the forest kindergarten "Lesinka" use part of the mill building as their base. Volunteering has been an important part of our work since the beginning, and in the last years, thanks to the kind support from the European programs, we have been able to host long-term volunteers from abroad. In addition to hosting, we also decided to send volunteers abroad, because we wanted to offer the