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CHOICE · EXPERIMENTARY · TAKE

A notebook.
Your findings.

Up to six proposals of Cabeceiras, in your own order, to do it at home, in company or on a break.

4 de 6 propostas escolhidas · faça-as ao seu ritmo.

PROPOSTA 1 DE 4 · Life you do not always see

A Transforming Family

Occurrence mentioned in the environmental document

The Iberian wolf

The environmental assessment of the municipal master plan records a wolf pack in the area, based on ICNF information. This reflects Cabeceiras’s ecological importance; it is not a promise of a sighting. Learning about this presence does not require searching for the animals or revealing their shelters. The national platform links a shortage of wild prey with livestock consumption and conflict with pastoral communities. It presents protecting flocks and restoring natural prey as complementary parts of conservation. A pack is also a family that changes. The platform describes a breeding pair, offspring from different years and sometimes other related adults. The group defends a territory, but its composition changes through births, growth and dispersal. In the general cycle described for Portugal, pups are born in late April or May. During summer, rendezvous sites become centres of family activity; in autumn, the young begin accompanying adults as they travel and hunt. This is not an observation calendar for a particular pack. As they grow, some young wolves leave their original group to seek a territory, a mate or another pack. Others stay longer when enough food is available. A count at one moment therefore does not describe an unchanging family: social life follows the annual cycle and the opportunities offered by the landscape.

Vamos experimentar?

  1. Draws a family group with adults and pups from the description.
  2. Add arrows to represent growth and output of young people from the group.
  3. Compare two moments of the drawing: what would change in a countdown?

General biology scheme; it does not represent the number of wolves in a local pack.

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Sources of this proposal

My findings

An idea, a drawing or a question to go on.

PROPOSTA 2 DE 4 · Read the landscape through the plants

Try observing

Hillside crops · olive botany

One leaf, two sides

The municipality’s landscape description includes olive trees on the hillsides of Cabeceiras. The cultivated olive has leaves that are grey-green above and silvery-grey beneath, where hairs grow. Its small flowers have four white petals joined at the base. The fruit is the olive, an oil-rich drupe. The University of Évora’s description follows the change from green to reddish and dark shades during ripening, but also mentions forms that remain green when ripe. Colour alone does not tell the fruit’s whole story. The connection from tree to olive oil continues in the story of the Ramil oil mill. The profile distinguishes the cultivated olive from its wild form, known in Portuguese as zambujeiro. The latter is described as having smaller leaves and fruits and thorny lower branches. This comparison shows why a single feature, such as the silvery underside of a leaf, does not explain every difference. The olive is evergreen: it retains foliage throughout the year. You can therefore return to the same tree in different seasons and compare leaves, flowers and fruits, without expecting to find them all at once.

An elongated green olive leaf with a pale central vein and other leaves behind it.
An olive leaf photographed in Stutensee, Germany, in 2011. Botanical illustration, not an observation from Cabeceiras. This view does not show both sides of the same leaf.
Photography: H. Zell · CC BY-SA 3.0
About this photograph

Date given at source: . Source consulted in 2026-11-07. EXIF orientation, proportional resizing and WebP conversion; no retouching or clipping of the file.

Request removal or correct the photo credit

Vamos experimentar?

  1. Observes the photograph: draw the contour and the central nerve of the sheet.
  2. The image does not show the two sides of the same sheet. Separate what you see from what the text explains on the lower face.
  3. If you observe an olive tree throughout the year, record separately leaves, flowers and fruits, without taking off material.

An activity to try at your own pace, without collecting specimens.

Open a história e os seus recursos →
Sources of this proposal

My findings

An idea, a drawing or a question to go on.

PROPOSTA 3 DE 4 · Crafts and memories

Compare two solutions

Alvite and Passos · irrigation documented in 2008

The water changed its path

The municipal record for Poça do Monte, surveyed on 14 April 2008, describes a change in Alvite: the shared users piped the natural-ground channel in 2001. It was about one kilometre long and used water from the Ribeiro Furado spring. The record identifies seven shared users and mentions a steep initial slope. This story helps distinguish the old open channel from piped water conveyance. The document cannot establish the network’s condition today and does not present a walking route.

Vamos experimentar?

  1. Split a sheet into two columns: before and after.
  2. Note the change described in the text and the date of the source.
  3. Write a question the document leaves open.

Exploitation of the document, no visit to the real estate.

Open a história e os seus recursos →
Sources of this proposal

My findings

An idea, a drawing or a question to go on.

PROPOSTA 4 DE 4 · Travel through time

Try observing

Gondiães and Vilar de Cunhas · memory and landscape

A house with three granaries

At Casa de Chouzas, three 19th-century granaries stand alongside the manor house highlighted by the municipality. The group connects two functions: living and storing the harvest. Rather than looking only at the main house, it is worth recognising the importance of buildings supporting agriculture. The introduction to Vilar de Cunhas places this heritage in a landscape of plateau and mountain, shaped by farming and pastoralism. House and granaries can be read in that working context, although the source does not detail each property’s production. The house’s dating is less firm: the municipality presents it as perhaps 19th-century, while assigning the granaries to the 19th century. That difference should remain visible. The photograph accompanying the reading shows the portal, not the three granaries. The heritage reference does not confirm access to the group.

Vamos experimentar?

  1. Look at the photo of the portal and list only the elements you can see.
  2. Compared to the three granaries mentioned in the text: what depends on the written description?
  3. Imagine a caption that distinguishes the frame of the photograph from the remaining patrimonial set.

An activity to try at your own pace, without collecting specimens.

Open a história e os seus recursos →
Sources of this proposal

My findings

An idea, a drawing or a question to go on.

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