Olmie’s Adventure

Olmie is an olm. Or a human fish as the local people lovingly like to call her. Tired of her quiet life in the darkness of the karst underworld, she wanted to wander in the outside world, a world of light, colour and change, which she had heard bats talk about. Her best friend, Wilhelm the Water Man, strongly advised against it and warned her of the dangers lurking up there. But because Olmie was adamant in her plan, he came to her rescue with magic. Abra… Cadabra… Poof! And in no time at all, Olmie was equipped with sharp eyesight, tough skin and strong lungs – ready for an adventure in the outside world. They said their goodbyes and Olmie sailed off into the white day … On the way, she met fish and realised that she didn’t look much like them (even though the local people refer to her as a human fish!). She socialised with the frogs and noticed that she had many things in common with them. Her adventures in the outside world were all new, exciting and interesting, until… Oh my! She’s narrowly escaped a heron’s beak, but here the story gets even more complicated and Olmie also meets people …

Storytelling is a well-established teaching method where information is presented in the form of a story. The story can also be an imaginary one, because children’s power of imagination is one of the most powerful and useful tools in teaching. Olmie’s Adventure is designed as a natural science story, and at the same time as an imaginary story, for younger children who want to learn more about the life of the olm (Proteus anguinus). Through the story, children can learn about the living conditions in caves, the main adaptations of the olm to the cave environment, some of the inhabitants and visitors of caves, such as bats, the olm’s relatives – other amphibians – and thus the similarities and differences between the olm and frogs, fish, snakes, their way of breathing, their physical characteristics (e.g., the number of toes), etc. The imaginary framework in which these biological truths are embedded, in turn, acts as a means of bringing them to the attention of children in a more effective way.

The title of the original: Protejkina pustolovščina, 2023