BEST       ( Bentley Eco Schools Team)

BEST - Bentley Eco School Team The John Bentley School in Calne has an Eco Group called BEST, we are a group of students who think about the environment and look at ways we can be more environmentally friendly and promote sustainability within our school: We meet every Wednesday Lunchtime at "The Drop In" upstairs in Science.

Monday 23 May 2011

Green Britain Day


18th May 2011 - Green Britain Day


The Green Britain Day Bunting was in place, with footprints leading the way. The wind turbine and solar energy products we won from taking part in "Switch off Fortnight" and a display board of all the groups achievements were put up outside in the Science courtyard, then the bell went and the rain poured, and everyone dashed for cover! No pics were even taken!

One year 8 class who are studying ecology had a workshop to make a "Bug Hotel" for insects to nest and hybernate in. They used elderwood, potato peelers and pokie out sticks. 

They peeled the Elder sticks with potato peelers and pushed out the pith of the stick using a pokie out stick, they then bundled about 10 sticks together with string and they where hung in the woodland area of school.




In a couple of weeks time they can revisit the Bug Hotels and investigate which bugs have made use of them.  Some were hung high in the branches and some lower down.

Monday 16 May 2011

Tuesday 10 May 2011

Greenhouse and Allotment news

How exciting, a small but very usable walk in greenhouse.  We now have somewhere for our seeds to germinate.


It was put up today with the help of two volunteers,  very easy to build and it means the students can water their plant,s when they can, during the day.


The sunflowers (planted as part of PSHEE day) which you will see from the photograph really need to be planted out, this is going to be done on the 18th May as part of GREEN BRITAIN DAY. 

We also had our first afterschool club today, which meant we really could get to grips with the allotment,  we planted out the lettuces and beetroot that we kindly donated and we planted out the pumpkins and swede.  We learnt about the first set of leaves bieng called the "Seed Leaf" which is then followed by the "True Leaf".  When transplanting seedlings,  you carefully hold the leaf so you don't damage the roots.  We used a plank of wood to make a small, straight line to plant out the beetroot and we also used a dibber and then watered well.



                       



Next week we will be seeding several trays of perennial plants (perennial means, a plant that will live for several years, they usually die back in the autumn and winter.)