Educational travel and schools camps for students
Get to know Iloranta’s awarded Authentic Educational Travel Product!
Nestled amidst the serene beauty of Finnish nature, Iloranta offers tailored school camps and educational tours for student and pupil groups, as well as education professionals from around the globe. Our aim is to deliver authentic countryside experiences while actively contributing to the advancement of environmental education. Iloranta is a ”Learning in the countryside”-audited camp school destination from as early as 1980. We have had the pleasure to serve over 40000 children in our school camps over the years. Our camp school offerings encompass comprehensive packages, ensuring a seamless experience for participants with guided programs, full board, and lodging included.
Phenomenon-based learning in Iloranta
Nature, environment and country life are the subjects of phenomenon-based learning at Iloranta. In our decades of school camps we have noticed that true learning is based on personal experience and insight. Here you can start to figure out which are the aspects of country life and nature that spark your interest, or that are all new to you. Before the beginning of your visit, you get to choose themes for the students to observe in smaller groups during the camp. The themes will be developed together with the teachers and our instructors throughout your stay.
Discover Finnish Culture
Our programs are meticulously crafted to immerse you in the wonders of Finnish nature, history, culture, and education. Each detail is thoughtfully designed to provide enriching learning experiences that resonate long after your journey ends.
You will engage in daily hands-on activities that allow you to truly “live like a local.” Whether it’s crafting woodwork in the forest, mastering the art of baking traditional rye bread, casting a line for fishing, or discovering the intricacies of crayfishing, these immersive experiences deepen your appreciation for Finnish heritage and culture while fostering insights into the diversity of our world.
Activities and experiences for school camps
The varied activities include crafts and sports. For example, you can bake rye bread, go fishing, snowshoeing, natural ice curling or try carding, spinning and felting sheep’s wool. Just grabbing fish and crayfish in your hand are great experiences that live on in stories that are told over and over again at home. Iloranta has a wide range of sports facilities, including ping-pong and pool tables, tennis courts, trampolines, volleyball and basketball courts and a climbing wall.
SDG-programme
Beyond food and waste, Iloranta leverages its natural setting to educate youth on the importance of climate action. Exploring the traces of the last ice age in the nearby forest allows students to draw connections between past climate fluctuations and the urgent challenges of today, as outlined in SDG 13. Iloranta’s model of leading by personal example resonates with SDG 4: Quality Education, empowering young people to adopt sustainable behaviors.
Educational travel and local schools visits
During the school camp you can visit several local schools and university, shedding light on the Finnish educational system but also offering active opportunities for discussions and acquaintance with pupils and students. We cooperate with Hauho comprehensive school, Finnish university; HAMK and Finnish high schools.
Camp school experiences
Our educational travel package includes:
- Full board from the buffet: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and supper
- Accommodation in 2-6 person rooms or cottages
- Bed linens and final cleaning
- Guided camp activities
- Daily use of the beach sauna, smoke sauna available on one evening
- Use of sports fields and equipment
- School visits
- Trips to Häme castle, KultaSuklaa chocolate factory, Iittala glass factory
Example programs for educational travel and school camps
Our schools camps and educational travel programmes can be customised for different period of stays and activities.
Four day winter school camp
Monday
Arrival and welcome to Iloranta, info tour of the farm area -delicious home-cooked lunch
Snowshoe trip, with picnic lunch in a forest or lakeside lean-to
Sauna and ice swimming
Tuesday
”Soft, woolen moments” – carding and spinning lambswool
Survival skills in the forest: measuring distance in nature, making a fire, handling matches and knives, and boiling water
Ice curling on the ice of Iso-Roine.
Traditional Finnish smoke sauna and ice swimming
Pancake party in the moonlight
Wednesday
Guided fishing and crayfishing: learn the secrets of ice fishing, and see if there are any catches from nets and fish traps under the ice
Climate change / Ice Age trail, exploring the events of the melting ice age and how climate change is manifesting itself right now!
Sauna and ice swimming
Baking rye bread to take home
Class night out; board games, pool, races or even disco
Thursday
Morning outdoors; hockey, snow football and downhill skiing
Receiving your own rye bread
Departure from Iloranta
7 day Educational travel programme
Authentic Finnish Educational Travel Product winner
Monday
Arrival and welcome to Iloranta, info tour of the farm area -delicious home-cooked dinner
Climate change / Ice Age trail, exploring the events of the melting ice age and how climate change is manifesting itself right now!
Sauna and swimming
Tuesday
Visit to Hauho comprehensive school Get to know the famous Hauho comprehensive school. It is a pioneer in creating a learning environment. It is more than a school, it is an education community. At Hauho comprehensive school, the students and teachers together have created a school yard that supports a sporty lifestyle.
Guided fishing and crayfishing Taking part in checking the fish-traps and fishing nets. Fishing with fishing rods awakes the perch to eagerly catch the bait.
Finnish yard games
Pancake party at the campfire
Wednesday
Hämeenlinna and Iittala day (Häme castle, KultaSuklaa chocolate factory, Iittala glass factory)
Woodcrafts: making your own wooden knife
Wall climbing
Thursday
Visit to Finnish university; HAMK
Presentation of Finnish educational system
Interactive working together with Finnish students
”Soft, woolen moments” – carding and spinning lambswool
Trail of the senses, “Forest bath”
Sauna and swimming
Friday
Visit to Finnish high school
Presentation of Finnish schools systems
Traditional Finnish plays by tutors
Felting wool
Environmental art We create art using materials from nature and items discarded from other use
Trek in the local, ”dark” evening forest
The lightness of the summer nights or the total darkness of the forest; a bright starry night and the snow covered trees maybe even Northern lights?
Saturday
Survival skils in the forest / In winter: Winterwonderland on ice
You learn how to set a campfire and boil water on it.
Curling on natural ice, ice hockey in shoes, kicksledding and Finnish sleigh carouseling on ice
Finnish yard games / In winter: Winter games, sliding downhill, snow football
Woodcrafts: making your own birdhouse
We make birdhouses and then we take them to the nearby forest, so that the small birds would have more nesting places.
Last night party on camp fire
Sunday
Baking rye bread
The tale of rye – baking rye bread using a decades-old starter dough.
Everyone makes their own loaf of bread. You take your own fresh-baked bread home with you
A trip to the forest and baking bun on a stick on the campfire
The nature trail of Iloranta leads via Mäyräkallio (Badger cliff) along the marshland to Kotivuori (Home mountain) and through the wild nut grove to the old gate. The tales of the animals, trees and ecology of the forest makes the nature almost tangible.
Departure from Iloranta
Activities in Iloranta
Authentic Finnish Educational Travel Product winner
Iloranta’s educational travel product was awarded the prize of the “Authentic Finnish Educational Travel Product Competition 2019”!
A jury consisting of representatives from Visit Finland and the Finnish National Board of Education judged our product “Diving into Finnish nature, culture, history and educational system” among the winners on 6 September 2019.
The award criteria of authenticity, locality, experiential, educational and unique, together with sustainability, have become familiar in Iloranta for decades.