As part of our Eco Schools topic on Biodiversity, our Eco Committee decided that they wanted to do something to help Scottish biodiversity outside as well as inside our school grounds.

After some research they found an environmental charity called Trees for Life. Trees for Life aims to revitalise Caledonian wild forest in the Highlands of Scotland, providing space for wildlife to flourish and communities to thrive. They will plant native species of tree, such as alder, aspen, birch, bird cherry, hazel, holly, rowan, Scots pine or willow, on behalf of schools, businesses or individuals to restore forests, that have been decimated by human activity over thousands of years. It is estimated that the Caledonian forest present today in the Highlands, is a mere 5% of its original 1.5 million hectares as trees were cut for fuel and timber, and to convert the land to agriculture.

Trees for life can help to reverse this damage. Young trees are planted beside established native trees to transform bleak open hillsides into a healthy forest providing a habitat to support species such as red squirrel, black grouse, Capercaillie, pine marten, otters, golden eagle and Scottish Crossbills.

These trees are planted at Dundreggan, near Loch Ness in beautiful Glen Moriston. Dundreggan includes ancient Caledonian pinewoods and superb birch and juniper woodlands. With mires, wetlands and wildflower meadows, Dundreggan is a haven for wildlife. Not only does this provide habitat for wildlife, it also helps to absorb and lock up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, to help combat climate change, as trees use this gas to produce their own food in the form of starch, through photosynthesis and return oxygen to the air. Trees also hold water, prevent flooding, restore underground reservoirs and maintain water vapour in the air, increasing the chance of rainfall and reducing drought and desertification.

The St. Albert’s primary grove has been started with three trees planted on our behalf. We can add more trees as time goes on at a cost of just £6 each. We hope that the whole community of St. Albert’s Primary will add trees to our grove, so that it becomes a forest over time. You can add a tree to our grove on the Trees for Life website at:

https://treesforlife.org.uk/find-a-grove/

On this page, type St. Albert’s Primary, Glasgow into the search box and hit RETURN. This will take you to a page where you can purchase trees which will be added to expand our grove to create something beautiful for the wildlife and future generations to enjoy.

As an Eco school, St. Albert’s Primary takes the problem of litter very seriously. Every lunch time, pupils work on a rota basis to clear the grounds of any litter that has been dropped, blown or thrown in to our grounds.

We also measure the success of our litter picking with surveys of the types and quantities of litter we find. We have found that some of our litter has not been dropped by our pupils due to the types we find, but rather has been thrown in by passing adults or has been removed by vandals from our bins and scattered.

Primary 5 recently carried out a litter survey in our grounds and weighed all the bin bags that we filled. The bags totalled 27Kg. Much of this weight was not due to sweet wrappers or crisp packets dropped by pupils, but was glass bottles thrown over our fences or hardware removed from our bins and scattered by vandals. The pupils understand that litter is harmful to wildlife and enjoyed removing it from our grounds.

Here are some pictures of them hard at work doing the Litter survey:

St. Albert’s Primary Eco Committee decided when we wrote our Eco Action plan that we would adopt the two streets on either side of our school, Maxwell Drive and St. Andrew’s Drive, for regular litter picking. This was because school grounds litter surveys have shown that some of the litter in our grounds is not the type to be dropped by our pupils, but rather has been thrown or blown in from outside. They had also noticed graffiti in the local area (which is another form of litter) and were keen to report this to the council so that it can be removed.

As we were not allowed to borrow extra litter picking kits from the council, due to current Covid restrictions, we decided to use some of the money in our school Eco fund to buy some extra kits that we could use instead. Our Eco fund is money that we raise ourselves through recycling textiles with the Rag Bag company.

Primary 6 walked up St. Andrew’s Drive collecting litter along the way and continued litter picking in Maxwell Park, before heading back to clean up Maxwell Drive. Not surprisingly, at this time of year,  used fireworks showed up in the litter survey results, but discarded face masks were also regularly seen on the ground. The litter collected filled 6 bin bags and these weighed a total of  6.4 Kg. They photographed examples of graffiti in our local area and recorded the locations and type of graffiti they found and these have been reported to the council so they can be removed. Here are some pictures of Primary 6 on their litter pick and graffiti hunt.

Primary 5 and some of our Eco Committee braved wind and rain on Friday afternoon to plant a hedge of Grey Willow and Crab Apples in the school Eco garden. Some children were so keen that they even skipped their afternoon play to continue working. The Eco Committee decided that we should plant a native species hedge in our grounds to improve Biodiversity and provide food and shelter for birds and other small creatures.

Grey willow foliage is eaten by caterpillars of a number of moths, including the sallow kitten, sallow clearwing, dusky clearwing and lunar hornet clearwing. It is also a food plant for the purple emperor butterfly. Catkins provide an important early source of pollen and nectar for bees and other insects, and birds use grey willow to forage for caterpillars and insects.

Crab Apple leaves are food for the caterpillars of many moths, including the eyed hawk-moth, green pug, Chinese character and pale tussock. The flowers provide an important source of early pollen and nectar for insects, particularly bees, and the fruit is eaten by birds, including blackbirds, thrushes and crows. Mammals, such as mice, voles, foxes and badgers, also eat crab apple fruit.

We hope that the hedge will soon become established and will benefit the many living creatures that visit and live in St. Albert’s school grounds in the years to come.

A big thank you to our P5 pupils for their hard work and care in this project.

Miss Brooks and the Eco Committee

         

Dear Parents/Carers,

The Eco Committee want to spruce up and decorate the wire fence which runs down one side of our Eco garden to make it more attractive. Can you help by donating any of the following items to our school?

• • Brightly coloured/ patterned unwanted Wellington  boots to use as hanging planters.
  • Old metal teapots to use as bird houses
  • Bricks with holes through them, garden canes, old pipes or other tubing or even wooden pallets to use in making our new bug hotel
  • Leftover outdoor masonry or wood paint
  • Plastic 2l lemonade bottles to make self-watering indoor plant pots
  • Unwanted CDs and plastic ties to use for decorative purposes
  • Offcuts of wood e.g. old skirting boards to use for making animal habitats
  • Coloured plastic bags to tie together and weave through the fence
  • Any unwanted garden benches
  • Colourful sweet and chocolate wrappers and other clean wrappings to use in anti- litter collage
  • Unwanted plant pots

I will put a large box in the school hall just inside the Maxwell Drive entrance for any such donations.

We have also started collecting uneaten fresh fruit and salad in the dinner hall to add to our Eco garden compost bin. The pupils have been instructed to add these to a separate blue bin in the dinner hall at lunchtime so they can be taken to the Eco garden composters. Making compost this way prevents rotting fruit going to landfill and cuts the costs of purchasing compost for our fruit and vegetable growing. Pupils can bring these food items in from home and deposit them in the blue bin too.

Thank you for anything you can donate to help us with these projects.

Miss Brooks and the Eco Committee

Hi to all the boys and girls of St. Albert’s Primary.

There is a new free, easy to use  app available called Spot-a-bee, to download on your phones, that can help you to help scientists find out more about bees and give you another useful thing to do when you are off school. It has been created by Glasgow University’s School of Education and the University of Cardiff.  It is available on the Apple app store or on Google Play. I have already got it on my phone. Biodiversity is one of our Eco Schools topics this year and next, and this is a great way to learn more about bees and help their survival at the same time. This is also a project that other members of your family might like to take part in.

What you do is take photos of bees that you see on plants when you are out and about on walks, or in the garden and send the photos to the scientists, who will use your pictures to see what type of plants the bees are visiting across the whole country. When you do this, you will notice that there are many different types of bees with different coloured stripes which are used to identify them.

The information gathered by scientists will help to save bees from extinction by showing exactly what types of plants we need to plant across Britain to give them nectar to survive. It will also show you the best plants to put in your garden or in pots outside your door so you are helping nature. Scientists are hoping that the information they learn from this project will help them understand more about the anti-microbial (anti-germ) nature of honey.

There will also soon be a learning pack for children coming out soon on this subject and as soon as I get it I will upload it for you to use. So don’t wait download the Spot-a-bee app today and become a Citizen Scientist.

Miss Brooks

Hi everyone,

I hope you are enjoying these posts and that you are trying out some of the ideas I am putting on this page. Leave a comment to tell me how you are getting on.

Today I decided to share a great learning pack from the RSPCA with you. We have had visits in school from SSPCA officers over the years to teach us many things about how we can look after our furry and feathered friends. This pack that you can access with the link below will help you learn more about animals and I hope that you find it fun and interesting.

Scottish SPCA Adventure Tails Orange Activity Booklet

Miss Brooks

Hi to all the boys and girls of St. Albert’s Primary.

Each week, WWF (the World Wildlife Fund)  will be providing five engaging ways for you to connect with nature and learn more about our amazing planet. Their  themed weeks will include live learning events using this link:

our dedicated Facebook group

and  you can find out about these great resources on this page:

https://www.wwf.org.uk/learn/love-nature

These learning events are a way  to join in with fun and interesting webinars with WWF experts, and there are links to their  popular educational materials. Just in case you miss any of these live events, you can revisit and access all content as and when you need to.

You will need to get an adult to join the Facebook group for you.

Miss Brooks

Hi again boys and girls,

Spring is a beautiful time of year. Everything has started growing again, the birds are making nests and butterflies are appearing after the long winter. If you are lucky enough to catch sight of a carefree butterfly or moth in your garden it is a reminder to take pleasure in the small things. Who doesn’t feel a sense of wonder when you see a beautifully patterned butterfly flitting across your garden or sitting on a flower in the park? However, like the rest of nature butterflies are struggling to cope in a world where the wildflowers that they depend on for nectar to survive are becoming a thing of the past. How can we help them survive for the future?

Luckily there is a great charity, Butterfly Conservation which is dear to my heart, who are working hard to help butterflies survive. Here are some of the things you can get involved in at home to save these beautiful creatures from extinction on the Butterfly Conservation website:

You can ask an adult to join you to help scientists find out where our butterflies are surviving and what types are around the country. You don’t even need to go far for this job. You can do this in your garden or out on a walk or in the park. I have the app on my phone and whenever I see a butterfly I record it using the ID chart in the app.

How to take part in three easy steps:

Ask an adult to sign up to take part. Go to: https://butterfly-conservation.org/how-you-can-help/fund-our-work/other-ways-to-help/send-us-your-butterfly-sightings

1. Sign up to become a Butterfly Conservation citizen scientist (Your parent will need to do this for you)
2. Download the free iRecord app to your phone (available from itunes and Google store)
3. Spot butterflies in your garden and record them on the app

This page will explain everything:

https://butterfly-conservation.org/butterflies/recording-and-monitoring

Miss Brooks

Hi boys and girls,

Would you like to take part in a challenge that helps charities?  The 2.6 challenge is open to all ages and encourages people to get active and be creative around the number 26 or 2.6.

Right now lots of charities are struggling. Many fundraising events in the UK have been postponed or cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and so charities  need more help than ever. This is a great way to raise some money to help them.

What do you do?  First pick a charity you would like to support. Then decide what you are going to do for your challenge. It must be based around the number 26 or 2.6. For example, you could walk for 2.6 miles with an adult, or throw and catch a ball 26 times. There are lots of ideas on https://www.twopointsixchallenge.co.uk/ 

Then you ask friends and family to sponsor you to complete your challenge or you can ask an adult to make a donation on your behalf to a charity. Keep Scotland Beautiful is an environmental charity and if you wish to donate the money you have raised to them, you can ask an adult to use this link:

https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/donation-web/charity?charityId=1006479&stop_mobi=yes

There are other Eco charities that desperately need funds right now.For example WWF UK or S.S.P.C.A:

This link will take you to a page where you can see which charity you would like to support:

https://twopointsixchallenge.justgiving.com/get-involved

Good luck. Please let me know in the comments section what you are doing and for what charity.

Miss Brooks