On the edge of a former industrial site in Northern Ireland, there’s a certain stillness that feels more like waiting than emptiness. From the coast roads near Larne to the outskirts of Antrim, you can almost imagine what these places used to be as you stroll past their overgrown verges and rusting fences. Until recently, it was more difficult to imagine what they might develop into. The unlikely Cornish experiment known as the Eden Project, which was constructed inside an abandoned china clay pit 25 years ago, now hopes to accomplish a similar goal here. Additionally, it wants schools to be at its core.
In essence, what Eden suggests is a classroom without walls, though the term has been used so frequently in educational circles that it has almost completely lost its meaning. It’s more literal than literary in Eden’s hands. Kids stroll through biomes. Wet bark is what they smell. They deal with compost. They watch pollinators do something that a textbook can’t quite capture while sitting cross-legged in glasshouses. For years, the original site’s co-founder, Sir Tim Smit, has expressed his desire for Eden to be the world’s greatest classroom—”a place where you’d learn effortlessly because you didn’t even think it was a classroom.” Until you see a Year 5 group truly forget they’re being taught anything, it sounds like a marketing ploy.
In a subtle way, Northern Ireland is more prepared for this than most people realize. Forest Schools now make up more than 25% of all primary schools in the area; this percentage has gradually increased without much notice. Teachers in Tyrone and Down have been searching for appropriate outdoor pedagogy for years. They frequently pay for their own training and improvise lessons under tarpaulin that leaks. There is an appetite. In general, the infrastructure isn’t. With the best of intentions, the Department of Education has struggled to fill that gap, but Eden, if it lands properly, does so.
Walking around Belfast right now gives me the impression that the way the area views education is changing. One signal is the Immersive Classroom at W5, which was introduced last summer in collaboration with BT and the Education Authority. It is a 5G-enabled simulation room that projects ocean floors onto the carpet and rainforests onto the walls. The outdoor equivalent of that indoor marvel would be Eden. It’s difficult to ignore the symmetry. Children learn through one project that they can call upon the world. They can enter the world on their own, the other reminds them. It is possible that both are required.
It’s genuinely unclear if Eden’s Northern Ireland chapter will be as good as the Cornish original. The politics of any major cross-community project on this island have their own weather, and funding is never easy. Planning permissions are even more difficult. The issue of who gets in is another. Field trips are expensive. Coaches are expensive. Anything this ambitious carries the risk of becoming a destination for schools with other options. It remains to be seen if Eden’s outreach initiatives, such as teacher CPD, regional partnerships, and the apprenticeship pipeline, can reduce that disparity.
As this develops, it seems that Eden in Northern Ireland is more about a permission slip than a building. authorization for educators to take students outside without offering an apology. Permission to use industrial land for purposes other than industrial loss. Permission for a generation to gently and ironically believe in a future that is worthwhile. It’s both a minor and a major issue, and who ends up with mud on their boots will likely be the difference between the two.