Insect Hotel Building Workshops in Ostrów Wielkopolski | 31 March 2026 | ORLEN. Neighbourhood Energy
On 31 March, Primary School No. 13 in Ostrów Wielkopolski was transformed for a few hours into a real workshop – not the ordinary kind with a blackboard and notebooks, but one where focus, curiosity, and hands-on work were what mattered.
The pupils took part in insect hotel building workshops organised as part of the project “ORLEN. Neighbourhood Energy”. From the very first minutes, the room had a special atmosphere – the children looked curiously at the materials and tools laid out before them, asked questions, and absorbed every word from the instructor.
There was no room for boredom or passivity – everyone had a specific task to carry out, and everyone carried it out. It is moments like these that confirm our belief that ecological education works best when it engages not only the mind, but also the hands.
What Is an Insect Hotel and Why Is It Worth Building One?
An insect hotel is a simple but enormously valuable structure that provides shelter for wild insects – above all solitary bees, wasps, ladybirds, and lacewings, which do not live in hives or anthills, yet play a crucial role in the ecosystem.
Unlike the honeybee, solitary bees do not produce honey, but they are among the most effective pollinators of plants – without them, many species of flowers, fruits, and vegetables simply would not survive. By building insect hotels, we create a safe space for them to overwinter and lay eggs, which directly contributes to biodiversity in our surroundings.
In an era of intensive agriculture and shrinking green spaces, such initiatives take on particular importance – insects are losing their natural habitats faster than we are able to restore them. That is precisely why it matters so much to us to teach children from the earliest age that every action – even building a small wooden structure – can have a real impact on nature.
How Did the Workshops Go?
The workshops had a calm yet energetic flow – the children listened carefully to the instructor’s guidance and then independently, step by step, assembled the components of the hotels. The group was focused and disciplined in the best sense of the word – not out of compulsion, but because the task had genuinely absorbed them.
Every pupil could feel like a real creator – someone who is not just sitting and listening, but actually making something from scratch, touching the materials, joining the pieces, and watching something take shape. We made sure that alongside the hands-on work, the children also learned who would be moving into their hotels and why it is worth creating safe shelter for insects.
By the end of the workshops, as many as 10 hotels were finished – each one a small masterpiece and proof that even a young child can do something truly valuable for the environment. Seeing the children’s pride in the results of their work was the most beautiful conclusion to the day.
Pride That Lasts
There are moments in education that stay in the memory far longer than any lesson from a textbook – and this was one of them, when the children saw the finished hotels they had built with their own hands. Their faces showed pride – that particular, childlike pride that cannot be faked.
We believe that a sense of agency is one of the most precious gifts we can give a young person – because agency gives rise to responsibility, and responsibility is the foundation of caring for the world. The children who today built an insect hotel with their own hands may tomorrow be the adults who consciously choose products from local beekeepers or plant nectar-rich flowers in their gardens.
For us, such workshops are an investment not only in knowledge, but in attitudes – and it is attitudes that change the world. And although 10 hotels may not seem like much on the scale of the whole country, on the scale of one school, one district, one estate – it makes an enormous difference.
Neighbourhood Energy in Action
The project “ORLEN. Neighbourhood Energy” is a wonderful opportunity for us to show how local initiatives can bring real benefits to both people and nature. At One More Tree Foundation, we have been working for years in the field of ecological education and the restoration of biodiversity, believing that change begins where we live – in the neighbourhood, at school, in the yard.
The workshops in Ostrów Wielkopolski fit perfectly into this philosophy – this was not a one-off event, but a deeply considered action that left something lasting behind. Ten hotels will go to various locations and provide shelter for insects whose presence we will all feel – in the flowers, fruits, and greenery around us.
Every such event reinforces our conviction that great changes are not born in offices, but in classrooms – among children who are learning that the natural world is their co-inhabitant and that it is worth taking care of. Because neighbourhood energy is not just a slogan – it is concrete actions, real people, and real insect hotels that have just been put up in Ostrów Wielkopolski.
Funded by the ORLEN Foundation.
