We have a new blog from Joanne today! A lot of exciting things have been happening........
Hello again! Since my last blog post I’ve been busy visiting schools and chatting to more of you about what makes the Inner Forth special for you. Now I have five minutes to sit down and let you all know what’s been going on in our corner of Scotland.
Film Project Update
Our School Film project is now thoroughly underway with both schools having spent a day with an animation expert, creating their own masterpieces, and a day out of the classroom having fun in the wild places in the Inner forth.
In David’s last post he mentioned that pupils from St Mungo’s primary school visited us to explore the RSPB Skinflats reserve. Having survived the I-spy playing, One Direction singing bus journey to the reserve, the pupils immersed themselves in creating autumn art and filming the gaggle of Greylag geese who were feeding next to the reserve at high tide. We also created our very own dance about the food chain following through from the mud-eating worms to the falcons that hunt around the Inner Forth. I also organised a day out with the P7 pupils from Airth primary school who stayed closer to home, exploring the Airth Castle woodlands and the Airth foreshore. We had a great day out and about learning about what happens to all those leaves that fall off in Autumn and the pupils even helped us to clean up the foreshore getting rid of lots of plastic rubbish that was strewn across the saltmarsh.
One pupil made us stop and think for a while when he asked if they had just had a free day off school because they ‘hadn’t learned anything’! We then did some filming, getting pupils to interview one another about what they had learned that day. It turned out that we’d actually managed to sneak a lot of learning into our day without the pupils even noticing. Even I was impressed by how much the pupils had picked up during the day and in our final film premier, in spring 2014, you will get to see some of those interviews.
St Mungo’s pupils enjoying a day out at RSPB Skinflats. Photo credit: Gabriele Rice-Grunert
Nature of Scotland winner!
It’s not just our primary schools which have been busy this month, Larbert High School have been announced winners of the RSPB nature of Scotland awards for their hard work creating and looking after a local nature reserve. They will be working with us over the next few months to set up a feeding station in time for doing the Big Schools Bird Watch. You can get involved with our Big Garden Bird Watch too; visit http://www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch/ for more information on how to take part, and help us build up a picture of what birds have had a good year in the Inner Forth, and which might need our help in the coming years.
Albatross stamp appeal
Moray primary school and Nursery have been helping us out with one of our more exotic appeals. They have been learning about the plight of the albatross, and have been busy creating posters to promote their appeal for these majestic birds. I was lucky to be invited to present prizes for their poster competition and collect a bag of stamps which the school have collected for the appeal. I took our life sized model albatross along with me to meet the pupils. It turns out that it takes five lower school pupils to make one albatross, their wings are so big! To find out more about how the stamps that Moray are collecting help the albatross check out our site http://www.rspb.org.uk/supporting/campaigns/albatross/
Moray Primary School in Grangemouth learning about the plight of the albatross. Photo credit: Marie Wright
...and more
The towns of the Inner Forth are getting geared up for the festive season, but even at this busy time of year a group of people made it out to join me along the Bo’ness foreshore for a guided walk and for some bird watching. As ever the wading birds and ducks of the Forth put on a fantastic show for us and the mud on the foreshore filled up with feeding birds as the tide retreated.
Hopefully I will get to meet many more of you over the next few months, keep an eye out for more details about Airth Primary School and St Mungo’s film premier