11th & 12th October:
This citizen science project with the British Trust for Ornithology is always popular with the children.
Classes worked in pairs except for Acorn class who had their own session on Tuesday morning.
Research by the BTO has shown declining numbers of many kinds of birds, which may be caused in part by a reduction in the amount of food available. In particular, the BTO want to know about numbers of soil invertebrates which many birds feed on.
The children dug up 30cm squares of turf from the school field, the area by the school garden, and the green space next to school.
After last summer's drought conditions, the ground was notably dry and hard, leading to generally lower numbers of worms, but, in some cases, more other insects and beetles. As always there was noticeably varying numbers of invertebrates from one sample point to another, illustrating the importance of collecting a wide range of evidence.
We'll bring you the data once we have had time to collate it.
