The Alba Explorers Centre for Outdoor Innovation CIC

03/11/2026

Tiny engineers. Big impact!

Earthworms tunnel, mix, recycle and help build the kind of soil plants can thrive in. Not bad for something with no arms, no legs and absolutely no toolbox!

The Alba Explorers Ltd. provide outdoor and environmental education across schools in Scotland, using pupil development sessions, staff training and bespoke outdoor space creation

31/10/2026

Rain hitting concrete has nowhere to go, so it rushes towards drains and rivers and can increase flood risk. Rain falling on healthy soil can soak in instead, feeding plants, supporting wildlife and helping the ground hold onto water for longer... where rain lands matters!

28/10/2026

Beneath our feet, plants are building completely different underground worlds, from deep mazes to enormous tangled nets. The Scottish Government

12/10/2026

Ask a child to name five Scottish wildflowers growing within a mile of their home. Then ask them to name five fast food logos, see which comes easier! That gap is what happens when more time is spent on screens than soil for example.

A place starts to feel different when you know what lives there. A daisy stops being just a flower. A blackbird stops being just a bird. When children learn the names of their wild neighbours, they begin to notice when they appear, where they go, and when something changes. That noticing is the beginning of care, and care is the beginning of action.

*Family Challenge:* Pick five plants, birds or insects you see regularly near your home or school and learn their names together this week. Start simple, they are closer than you think - here are five Scottish wild neighbours to get you started:

🌼 Daisy – A familiar little wildflower that provides food for pollinating insects.
🐝 Buff-tailed bumblebee – One of our common bumblebees, visiting flowers across gardens and countryside.
🍁 Rowan – A tree steeped in Scottish folklore, with clusters of bright red autumn berries.
🐦 Goldfinch – Look for its striking red face and flashes of yellow on its wings.
🕷️ Garden spider – Look for its intricate circular webs glistening with autumn dew.

How many can everyone still remember by next weekend?



Funded by the Scottish Government Climate Engagement Fund 🏴

29/09/2026

There is a hidden world in a teaspoon of soil! Soil is not just dirt. A teaspoon of healthy soil can contain billions of microorganisms, living things so tiny you’d need a microscope to see them. Along with fungi, worms, woodlice and other tiny creatures, they form an underground clean-up crew, breaking down dead leaves, old roots and other organic material and recycling the nutrients so new plants can use them.

This is part of what makes living soil so important. Healthy soil can hold more water, support more plant life and store more carbon underground. The same soil that grows more and copes better with heavy rain is often the soil with the most life in it. Most of this work is happening completely out of sight beneath our feet.

Mini mission: Lift up a plant pot, log or stone and become a soil detective. How many different living things can you spot in ten seconds? Is the soil dry and crumbly, or dark and damp? What do you think makes it a good place for those creatures to live?

17/09/2026

Who helped make your dinner?!

Bees are famous pollinators, but they’re not the only ones! Butterflies, moths, flies, beetles and other animals can carry pollen from flower to flower.

Lots of the fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds we eat benefit from animal pollinators. But not everything does. Wheat and other cereals, for example, are mostly pollinated by the wind. 🍏🍊🫐🍓🫛🥦🥕🌽🥒🧄🧅🥔🫜🍞🫘🥜

So take a look at your dinner. How many different journeys helped the food reach your plate? Dinner table challenge: Pick one fruit or vegetable on your plate. How do you think its flower was pollinated: by an animal, by the wind, or without pollination? Look it up, see if you were right!

10/09/2026

Why do flowers bother being so colourful?

Flowers can't move to find a mate, so they use animals to carry their pollen for them. Pollen is a fine, dust-like powder that flowers need to swap with another flower of the same kind to make seeds, this is how flowers reproduce and grow new flowers. A seed is like a starter kit, everything a new plant needs is packed inside, ready to grow once it lands somewhere with soil, water and light. But pollen can't travel on its own, so flowers need help. Bright colours work like an advert, saying "food here" to insects flying past. And each flower's shape is built to match a particular visitor: some are flat and open, so any insect can land and walk about, while others hide their food deep inside a long tube, which only an insect with a long tongue, like a butterfly, can reach. A meadow with many different flower shapes has many different 'doors' so it can feed far more kinds of insects through the year, while getting its pollen carried around for free!

Mini mission: Find a flower with an insect visiting it. Is the insect walking on top of the flower, or pushing its way inside? See if you can spot the same thing happening on a different flower...

Bonus thought: If you were an insect, what colour flower do you think would catch your eye first? Pick your favourite colour and keep a lookout for a flower that shade

04/09/2026

A great opportunity to join us as a volunteer, note your interest now!

We’re incredibly excited to be launching our volunteer programme over the coming weeks!

If you’d like to get stuck in and help us bring native trees back from the brink of local extinction, while being involved in some of the most hands-on and rewarding conservation work happening here in Angus and the wider South East Cairngorms, we’d love to have you involved.

Maybe you’re a parent of one of the children we’ve worked with over the years and you’ve always wondered what all the hype is about. Maybe you just love being outdoors, want to learn more about native trees, or fancy doing something practical that genuinely makes a difference locally.

You absolutely don’t need to come with loads of background knowledge or experience. The ideal volunteer for us is simply someone who is enthusiastic, willing to learn, happy to get stuck in and has good attention to detail.

A wee bit about the volunteering:

📍 Location: Fìor Forest Nursery at Rottal Estate, Glen Clova

🌱 What you might be helping with:
Seed collection, seed processing, propagation, caring for young trees, nursery maintenance and general nursery operations.

👐 Experience needed:
None! We’ll show you what you need to know. Enthusiasm, willingness to learn and good attention to detail are much more important to us than previous experience.

📅 How often:
We’ll have opportunities for both regular and seasonal volunteers. Some people might want to come along fairly regularly, while others might only be able to help during particular times of year, especially during seed collection season.

⏰ Flexibility:
We want this to be something people can realistically fit around work, family and other commitments. There won’t be an expectation that everyone gives the same amount of time.

🌲 What you’ll get from it:
The chance to learn practical native tree nursery and conservation skills, spend time outdoors in an incredible part of Angus, meet other like-minded people and contribute directly to restoring our local landscape.

A big part of what we want to do at Fìor is share our work with other people. We want to share our knowledge and passion, and give local people the chance to actually be part of what we’re building.

If that sounds like your kind of thing, keep an eye on the page. We’ll be sharing details very soon about how to get involved!

Link to volunteer sign uop sheet via QR code or in the link on the first comment

03/09/2026

Right now, underneath the plants in your garden or school grounds, there's a completely different world - cooler, damper, and teeming with life! Insects don't feel the weather the same way we do. A few degrees and a bit of moisture is the difference between survival and death. Wildflowers don't just look beautiful - they engineer the conditions that keep entire ecosystems alive. On a warm day, leaves block some direct sunlight, while vegetation and dead plant material can help the soil hold moisture for longer. That creates a small microclimate close to the ground, and for the tiny creatures living there, it's everything. Beetles, woodlice and money spiders get some protection from the elements, and other predators! (for now...)

🔍 Mini Mission: Press your hand flat on bare ground for 10 seconds. Then do the same beneath thick plants or long grass. Which feels cooler? Which feels damper? Somewhere in that difference, something small is hiding.


Funded by the Scottish Government Climate Engagement Fund..

31/08/2026

Feels great to be finally getting things off the ground at Fìor Forest Nursery.

Well be sharing updates about our tree growing, planting and volunteering through the Fìor page, where you can see whats going on on the ground at our wonderful 7 acre nursey site at Rottal, Glen Clova.

Welcome to Fìor Forest Nursery, the only place in Scotland where you can buy native Scottish trees grown with education, community cohesion and upskilling, and local habitat restoration at the core of its operations.

Fìor is one of many projects embarked on by The Alba Explorers Centre for Outdoor Innovation CIC, designed to put people and communities at the heart of social and environmental change.

Join us on our journey, as we transform our wonderful site at Rottal Estate into a productive native tree nursery that supplies much needed stock to local landowners for their own tree planting efforts.

Come and get involved!