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.

Photo's of the Allotment in May

Pumpkin

Weeds!

Sage, Thyme and Parsley

Lettuce

Sweetcorn

Nature's Calendar wildlife

Nature's Calendar wildlife

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.)

Back after Easter

WOW! Two weeks holiday and seedlings are beginning to show in the allotments,  we even have potatoes where we didn't plant them, this year.  The herbs have grown really well. The gardening group went down today and watered, weeded and planted some courgettes.

Just before we finished for the Easter holidays, some of the Year 11's planted out the sweetcorn, they have survived even with no rain water.


Our pumpkin seedlings I took home to re pot and weather outside, unfortunately we had a frost the first couple of days of the Easter holidays and only 4 survived.

Sunflowers 3 weeks old

The sunflowers the students had planted as part of PSHEE day were left in school and one of our science technicians came in and kept them watered, they are doing well.


The tomato plants are doing really well and will be planted out into grow bags in the next couple of weeks.

Tomato plants 8 weeks old

PSHEE Day - Planting Sunflowers

The year 7 students as part of their PSHEE day learned about Sunflowers, from where they come from to how they grow.  They tasted sunflower seeds and then had a go and planting them.  Some of the students brought a variety of containers to sow their seed, some made their pots out of newspaper and others used biodegradable pots.

Seedlings

Seedling: a plant grown from a seed, rather than from a cutting.

Came into school this morning and the pumpkin seeds and sweetcorn seeds have all sprouted. 

Tomatoes 3 weeks on

Pumpkin and Sweetcorn, two weeks on.