Raising Awareness

A big part of our project is awareness. Along with this blog, we will be spreading awareness in our school by having a table outside our cafeteria during lunch and recess once a week. We have been keeping magazines with environmental themes and our school's waste disposal records on the table. One of our goals is to promote recycling in our school, as the reports show that most waste is incinerated. The school has already bought some new recycling bins, and we would like to raise awareness about this so people know which waste goes in which bin (paper and cardboard, aluminum, plastic, food waste, etc.) We've also been talking to students about our work at the pond. So far, we have had a few enthusiastic visitors which we encourage to come to our meetings. We also talked to many teachers who wanted to know about our project.

Roots and Shoots Website Feature!!!

Yesterday, our Roots and Shoots group was featured on the UK Roots and Shoots website along with other schools applying for Roots and Shoots awards. We're still waiting to see if we will be able to attend the award ceremony with Dr. Jane Goodall, but for now we are excited to share our project with other Roots and Shoots groups in the UK!

Make sure to check out the Roots and Shoots website to send in your own application or be inspired to start new projects in your community. Click here to see our article and here for the Roots and Shoots UK website. 

Bulb Planting

Image from claudiasartlife.blogspot.com

Last meeting we decided to plant some bulbs in raised beds on the library patio. They were pink and purple alliums. Alliums are helpful with attracting bees and other pollinators. We planted in staggered rows so each plant would have space. When digging, we were also very happy to find lots of worms! In the spring, we will add some more compost to the beds to fertilize the plants and feed the worms.

Pond Maintenence #1

After school, we went to the pond to start with our pond maintenance plan. The first thing we need to do is rake the leaves away from the edges of the pond so they won't get washed in. When the leaves decompose, they add nutrients to the pond which encourage invasive plants and algae such as duckweed. We didn't finish raking all the leaves, but we made good progress. It also helped that the ground and the leaves were wet. We will plan another meeting to continue cleaning the leaves and will look into getting some netting or chicken wire to keep leaves out for good. Below are the before and after pictures of the pond.

Tree Planting

For the last couple of meetings, we've been focusing on planting the trees the school received from the Woodland Trust. We chose the wetland pack, which contains hazel, hawthorn, dog rose, crab apple, and other types of saplings. We also had bamboo supports and plastic tubes to protect the trees.

Our first job was to plant trees around our pond. We decided to use crab apple and dog rose trees because they will look nice and the crab apples will attract birds and other wildlife. We also made sure to leave a space so that people can still get a good view of the pond when the trees grow.

Next, we decided to plant some of our trees in an area which had previously been an arboretum. We planted two copses of about ten trees each. The trees were planted close together because they can attract more wildlife that way and unfortunately not every tree will survive. If they end up growing too close together, we can move them as needed.

Here is the link to the Woodland Trust website for more information on their projects and how you can apply for trees to plant in your school campus or community.
http://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/plant-trees/in-your-community/apply-for-a-school-tree-pack/

Making progress!

The arboretum

Trees before planting

The first tree

Arranging and planting

The Wildlife Man Visit

       

Last week, we had a visit from Mr. Jules Howard, or "The Wildlife Man." We showed him our on-campus pond and asked for some advice on how to keep it in good condition.

First, we took a sample of the pond water. We found lots of small creatures which were a good sign, but there was also some duckweed and fallen leaves. Mr. Howard suggested that we rake off the top of the pond to remove the duckweed and dispose of any leaves because they were causing nutrients to build up in the water and encouraging algae and invasive duckweed to grow. Part of our pond is also overgrown with reeds, and since we are trying to preserve it as an educational facility, it would not be good to have the whole pond covered. We will just pull up any reeds which grow too far to keep them from spreading too much.


We also showed Mr. Howard our hide, which is used for observing wildlife near the pond. We were very excited at the suggestion of making a floating bird feeder to place on the water. In the future, we would like to spend a meeting in the hide, recording any wildlife that we can see. We will then compare these reports to reports from past years.

As for new projects, one suggestion was that we use coir matting to put around the edge of the pond. This is a matting which is planted with native aquatic plants, and it is useful because these plants will use up the nutrients in the pond before the duckweed can grow back.

Mr. Howard's website: http://www.wildlife-man.co.uk/about.html

First Meetings!

So, we've just had our first few meetings, which have been huge successes! After advertising the club in a school newsletter, we were excited to meet our club recruits. So far, we've discussed invasive species and what they're doing to ecosystems, started research for a future information table at school, and planned a tree-planting day this weekend. Thanks to our supervisor, the school librarian, we also plan to meet with a pond expert to discuss how we can keep our on-campus pond in good condition for students to observe. Stay tuned for more info on how these projects are going!