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Dozens of primary school children took part last week at an Education Week at Cumbria Wildlife Trust’s Bowness-on-Solway Nature Reserve. The week was run by the Solway Wetlands Landscape Partnership Scheme and brought children from Houghton Primary School, St Bede’s in Carlisle, St Michael’s in Bothel and Kirkbride Primary School.
Each school had a day at the nature reserve exploring its nooks, crannies and ponds for mini-beasts, finding newts, snails, spiders, dragonflies and butterflies to name just a few, with the help of staff from Natural England, the RSPB and Cumbria Wildlife Trust plus enthusiastic volunteers.
The children were entranced by the number of different creepy crawlies they found while mini-beast hunting – they sweep-netted trees and grassland to catch bugs, looked under logs and stones to spy earwigs and gently shook trees to release their bounty of beasties.
 Lucy, a year 6 pupil at Houghton Primary School, just outside Carlisle, exclaimed, ‘I found three waterscorpions when I was pond-dipping; they were swimming underwater upside down! We also got to use ID sheets and I liked matching the pictures with the name. The best bit, though, was making the model mini-beast world from plasticine.’
Each young visitor got the chance to create a mini-beast world. They built up different layers of where mini-beasts live with soil, leaflitter, bark, moss (made by the pupils by dipping sponge into green paint) and fungus. They learnt the function of each mini-habitat and then, to top it off, they created millipedes, worms, snails, spiders and woodlice out of plasticine so they could understand the role of each creature.
Mr Campbell from Houghton Primary School noted, ‘Our day at the nature reserve was very well organised, with plenty of fantastic learning experiences for our pupils. They all enjoyed it so much that we hope to come back next year!’
Sue Woodland, Reserve Manager at Natural England added, ‘Contact with nature has halved in a generation and the overwhelming majority of children want more opportunities to play outdoors. Nature-based activities also provide a fantastic way of learning and growing – this was a great success and we are so pleased with the positive feedback we’ve had.’
The Solway Wetlands Landscape Partnership Scheme is a four-year project funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, covering the area north of Allonby, Wigton and Kirkbampton and Rockcliffe Marsh, incorporating the Solway Coast AONB. It is currently in its first year, the development stage.
The project is the result of partnership work between Solway Coast AONB, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Natural England, Western Lake District Tourism, Cumbria Wildlife Trust and the Environment Agency, with advice from the National Farmers Union.
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