Forest Report from Zwanenburg, Haarlem, Netherlands

Written by the students of
De Meerbrug School

Class or age : Grade 5

Name of Forest: Spaarnwoude

Click here to see the forest report on De Meerbrug School pages.

Walking in Spaarnwoude.

Like half Holland, Spaarnwoude is situated beneath sealevel! Here and there a small part of Spaarnwoude is reaching above sealevel.
Our country has a sea-climate. So there's plenty of rain!

In Spaarnwoude are many Willows growing; see our Willow Tree page for more information about this tree.

Walking in Spaarnwoude.

Farm animals

One of the eventualities of Spaarnwoude is to visit a farm. In Buitenhuizen is a farm called Zorgvrij where you can learn much about the animals on a farm.
Grade 5-6 (groep 7-8) visited this farm on March 4.
We made a quest through the farm and learned much about cows, horses, goats,, sheeps, pigs, and many more special animals.

The floristic wealth is one of the highest of Holland.
The kids like the forest because it gives them the possibility to play in the nature; Holland is one of the densely populated countries of the world. So there is not much forest left to play in!
We all know that Spaarnwoude must maintain forever, so our child's children can play in this "green lung" as well.

Tulips.

Statue

Between the forest of Houtrak and the Northsea-canal you find a small village, called Ruigoord. The city of Amsterdam wants to remove this village, so they can dig a new harbour.

The inhabitants of Ruigoord want to stay and live there for ever! Most of the inhabitants of Ruigoord are artists (painters, poem, writers). Not only the people of Ruigoord want that this village will survive. Many people of Holland hope that the city of Amsterdam will stop their policy of expansion! A new harbour could harm the live and welfare of Spaarnwoude.

We didn't have the time to search for more information about art, music and poem about Spaarnwoude. We only think that Spaarnwoude is a piece of art by itself.
But we made some poems by ourselves; not only about animals which live in Holland, but also about "your" animals.
In Holland we call this kind of poetry "Elfjes".
Click here read the pupils' poetry.

Fairy.

Windmill

In the past, Spaarnwoude consisted muddy shallows, marsh and reed-flats. In this area ebb and flood tides had free play. On this mud-flat grew a marsh-forest with Willows, Alders and Birch-trees. It led to the forming of peat-soil. The superfluous water streamed through small rivers like "De Liede" and "Het Spaarne" to the sea.

Heavy storms and high tides caused great parts of the peat-soils to wash away. Several times there was a great flood. So they decided to build a dike ("De Hoge Spaarndammerdijk") to save the left overs of the peat-soil and to protect cities like Haarlem. More about a dike and dike-burst you can read on the web-page about the story of Hans Brinker and our web-page about De Haarlemmermeer.

When the dike was constructed, they built mills to pump the water behind the dikes away. The hinterland was safe now. But in front of the dikes there were two shallows / lakes: "Het IJ" and "Wijkermeer". Roughly 100 years ago those two shallows / lakes were reclaimed (impoldered). So the "Houtrakpolder" (near Zwanenburg) and the "Spaarndammerpolder" were created.

Fields and Pollard Willow.

Windmill

In 1969 the Dutch Government, five municipalities and the province made the decision that the area between Amsterdam and Haarlem must stay a "green-area", without industry or buildings. So the plan "Spaarnwoude" was born, an area of 2750 hectare.