Bee Scene in 2010

Bee Scene in 2010! Calling on all primary teachers and environmental education coordinators to join a new survey next spring with your school or youth group. Take your class out to a local park, field or any other natural space and complete our simple survey. Then head back to the classroom with your young citizen scientists and help plant a virtual meadow online to link your findings with hundreds of others across the country.

Bee Scene is a national survey designed especially for primary school children and being run for the first time in 2010. The survey is simple to complete and provides an easy way for children to become citizen scientists and contribute to monitoring the natural environment.

The survey is supported by an education pack with additional cross curricular activities to support teachers to lead a Bee Scene expedition in their local green space. The survey can be done in an hour or with the education pack form a fieldwork or activity day or basis of a topic for investigation. The survey should be carried out between April and July.

Participating schools are asked to feedback their survey results online and in doing so will contribute to planting a virtual meadow across England. The pack has been written for Key Stage 2 but the survey is also appropriate for Key Stage 1.

The survey and activity pack provide children with opportunities to develop skills including observation and perception, teamwork, leadership, risk management, communication, map skills, problem solving and decision making. Children have the opportunity to write a press release or take part in a news broadcast, design their own scientific investigation or take part in a design and technology project. The education pack will promote deeper understanding of food chains and pollination, biodiversity and adaptations as well as the conflicts that occur where there are competing uses of land.

The survey and activity pack will be available online from mid March 2010. Before that time we are giving schools in England the opportunity to order a printed pack - of which only a limited number will be available. The first one hundred applications received will be sent a copy at the beginning of March. Please use the contact details below for more information.

The survey has been developed by Plantlife, the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, the John Muir Trust and the Child Safety Education Coalition. Bee Scene forms part of the Wild About Plants Project which aims to increase people's access to and enjoyment of natural spaces. The project is funded by Natural England through Access to Nature, as part of the Big Lottery Fund's Changing Spaces programme.

For more information, please contact:
Felicity Harris: tel 01722 342740 / 07506 428580; email felicity.harris@plantlife.org.uk

News Posted: 15 January 2010