Tag Archives: Citizen Science

Term 3

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This term we have been learning about Sound, doing lots of investigations and practical science and making instruments. Today we will be looking at all the amazing and creative musical instruments that have been made. Looking forward to hearing them all.
Last Friday we did the RSPB Schools Birdwatch, we had made fat balls and put birdseed out for several weeks. We didn’t see many species – mostly House Sparrows and Starlings, but all the P6/7s were fantastic at using the binoculars and identifying the species. They had also made superb identification posters about all our most common birds.
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Week 8

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We have had a lovely week, with a mixture of activities.

Some of our class went on a transition visit to Sandwick Junior High School and they enjoyed the range of activities. Next week they will have their 2 full days at the school.

Everyone has been very busy making in our enterprise project making lots of items for sale next week…watch this space. They made questionnaires too and on Friday did some market research for ideas about prices and designs.

Our drama projects are coming together and we’ll start filming next week.

We were really interested to hear back from family and friends in the Nepal climate change project and we had a great discussion about what changes we thought had occurred over the last few decades – there certainly doesn’t seem to be as much snow in the winters and some of the animals that we see are different.

Thanks to Ellie, we had a really interesting end to the week. She had been given some owl pellets by a relative. Last time we looked at owl pellets we only found mouse and rat remains from the Shetland long eared owls. This time we found lots more prey items – rats, mice, voles and shrews from the Barn owl pellets.

British Council Climate Project with Nepal

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This week P7 will be bringing home a survey to help them to start their Climate Project. They will be asking long term residents of Shetland questions about environmental and biodiversity changes here over the last few decades. It will be really interesting to hear what they find out. The project information is below. Thank you for your help.

P7 and P6/7 (from August) are taking part in a collaborative project ‘Pairing Communities in Scotland and Nepal to tackle climate change’. This project that has been funded by the British Council. For more information, please look at the following link: https://www.britishcouncil.org/arts/culture-development/our-stories/creative-commissions

• Collaborators: University of Edinburgh (Scotland), Tribhuvan University (Nepal), Teach for Nepal, Midlothian Council (Scotland)
• Climate change theme: Biodiversity; Air pollution
Synopsis
This project will partner school children in Nepal – a country truly impacted by climate change but not as developed in terms of green behaviours, with communities in Scotland – a country dedicated to taking measures but not as obviously affected. Through the collaboration, school children from ten schools in each country will perform parallel environmental measurement experiments and share stories, actions and findings. The children will share experiences through video pen pal exchanges to explore which of their interventions are most successful and to learn more about each other’s climates.
Experiments and pupil-led field research will include testing air and water pollution levels, litter analysis and measuring CO2 levels, temperature and rainfall – working with older pupils to assemble and programme weather stations. The findings of their experiments will be used as the foundation for school and wider community level eco-committees to take action specific to the environmental issues most prevalent in their area.
The eco-communities across Scotland and Nepal will share their successes and challenges with the ultimate aim of finding the most innovative solutions – supported through the establishment of an annual prize. Pupils will also create artworks promoting sustainable messages and will work alongside comic artists, produce blogs and journalistic reports.

What’s Under Your Feet?

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Primary 7 worked really enthusiastically today on this long term British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) citizen science project.

Over the year we will carry out 3 invertebrate surveys to see what is living in our school grounds. The BTO is collecting information from all over the UK to find out whether the invertebrate numbers and species are changing and whether this has an effect on bird populations.

Today we found worms, slugs, beetles and a few other invertebrates. We didn’t find as many as we thought that we would. It will be interesting to see what we find in March and June.