Getting creative at Portbury Wharf

Students from Knowle Park Primary School came to visit Portbury Wharf today, thanks to a kind donation from Western Power Distribution which will allow pupils from the city centre to visit our newest reserve on the Severn Estuary. 




Year 3 pupils, made clay animals, took photographs, visited the Portbury Wharf sculpture, "Splash" and had a chance to explore the wonderful site, learning about different artistic techniques on route.                                            

The weather was fantastic for the time of year - warm and dry - which meant throughout the day we spotted loads of wildlife, including butterflies, beetles, worms and lots of dragonflies - one of which even landed on me! 

Thanks to the staff and pupils from Knowle Park who were enthusiastic learners and great fun. Keep up the good work and carry on getting creative in your own school grounds.

Bats, bugs and beautiful woodlands....

           

I had a brilliant day yesterday with Churchfield's Village School up at Brown's Folly nature reserve. The KS2 class walked up to the reserve from their schools using cameras and recordable microphones to explore their environment and document their visit.

They learnt about the amazing bats that live in the mines, the mythology of the trees in the woodland and the geology of the local area. They were a wonderful group, full of enthusiasm and are right now creating a blog about the nature reserve in class. Check it out here - http://www.brownsfolly.wikispaces.com/

For more information contact:juliedoherty@avonwildlifetrust.org.uk

Teacher training event at the Friend's Life Centre

I just wanted to say thanks to Liz at Friend's Life Centre at Brierly Furlong and the teachers from St Michael's CE Primary School in Stoke Gifford who attended the twilight training session yesterday. Friend's Life have kindly invited local schools to use their grounds as an outdoor learning environment after working with Avon Wildlife Trust over the last few years to make the site more wildlife friendly. Last year we worked with office staff  to create a wonderful new wildlife pond which is now looking great.

 Yesterday teachers found mayfly nymphs, phantom midge larvae, water fleas, hoglice, freshwater shrimps, an alderfly larva and the empty skin of a dragonfly nymph and the pond is only a year old! There's so much potential to use the grounds to engage students with the natural world in the future and it's only a short walk from school. Lucky students I say!

New Wild Schools website has gone live!

We are so excited in the learning team here at Avon Wildlife Trust about our new website. It is packed full of resources, ideas and stories about our great schools here in Avon.
Fancy exploring a wild place? Want to create a wildlife garden in school? Need to find out more about species that live near you? Our website can help you with all these things and much more.

Let us know what else you would like to see or find out about on the website, tell us about your wildlife adventures at home and share all the great wildlife news from your school. Contact: juliedoherty@avonwildlifetrust.org.uk or add a comment to this post.