Lincolnshire Young

Environmentalist Awards

2019

During the past few years, we have been

working hard to improve our environment

and use it to enhance and enrich our

curriculum.

Here are a few of the things we are doing,

some reasons why we are doing them and

examples of how we are using them in the

classroom.

Solar Panels

Solar Panels

Our new solar panels were fitted in the February

half term thanks to Fenland Green Power

Cooperative.

As well as helping us save money on our electricity

bills, they are also helping us reduce our carbon

footprint and therefore greenhouse gases which will

benefit our environment.

We have a display in the school hall

which records how much energy the

panels are producing and how much

money we are saving so everyone in

school can be involved.

Our year 5 & 6 children have started monitoring the power

we’re generating and how much money we’re saving on

Wednesday afternoons. They are also recording weather

conditions so we can compare with previous years.

This information, they will share with the rest of the school as

part of our Friday assemblies.

We will soon be using this data in our maths lessons.

Next term, our whole school topic is ‘energy’ and we will be

learning about the damaging affect fossil fuels have on our

environment and how renewable power sources like solar

panels can help.

Our School Field

Our School Field

We’re very fortunate to have a field on our school grounds. Here is our school field and spinney. We have been working really hard recently to develop this area so that we can learn more about our environment and

the wildlife which inhabits it.

Attracting Wildlife

Here are some examples of what we are doing to encourage local wildlife into our school:

Improving the hedgerow on the field Woodland trust donated some trees

which we have begun to plant around the perimeter of the field.

There are still some to be planted. We have another 105 trees being

delivered in November.

Attracting Wildlife

We’ve created various log piles around our school field to encourage mini

beasts. We have little bug hotels dotted about

too. These will be great for our Minibeast

topic.

Attracting Wildlife

Our Wild Garden is attracting lots of butterflies and bees. We were donated free packets of wild flower seed from Kew

gardens.

Attracting Wildlife

Bird boxes and bird tables

We love birds at Deeping St Nicholas but wanted to attract

more. As a result, we have added bird boxes, bird baths and

bird feeders around the field and in the spinney.

Attracting Wildlife

In EYFS/Y1 and Y2 , because of the children’s interest in seeing the birds,

they decided to kick start this academic year with a topic all about them.

Attracting Wildlife

With a little help from our parents we introduced a new bird hide

this year. Our most recent spots have been the Robin and the

Cuckoo.

Year 3 & 4 have recently been out using the bird hide as part of

their statistics unit in maths. They have been collecting data about

the different species of birds which visit our school and the most

popular.

Our Outdoor Classroom

We use this as an extra classroom and bring our learning

outside as much as possible.

We also have Owls visit.

EYFS and year 1 recently investigated the owl pellets

they found to discover what owls eat.

EWWW!

Gardening Club

We have a gardening club which runs on Monday lunchtimes. Children

from EYFS-Year 6 attend. It is very popular.

They are currently growing onions, aubergines, carrots and lettuce and

are about to plant some pumpkin seeds.

Gardening club are also growing courgettes for Farm Kitchen to use in

the children’s lunches. We have 4 troughs on the school playground so all

children can be involved in their growing process.

Gardening Club

Raised beds

We grow our own vegetables here. The vegetables

we grow are used in cookery lessons both in the

classroom and in cookery club. So far we have

grown courgettes, onions, tomatoes, leeks and

potatoes and beans and peas. These have been

used to make lemon and courgette cakes,

courgette fritters, French onion soup and bacon

and leek quiche. Any leftovers have been sold to

parents to raise money to replenish seed.

Our children last summer planting the

raised beds.

Composting

Composters

We use our fruit peelings and grass cuttings to

recreate compost. We collect the fruit peelings

we use at playtimes and everyone is involved.

This compost is then used on our raised beds.

Sensory Beds

This is for quiet reflect. Our sensory beds currently

contain lots of different smells and textured plants.

Some examples of these are lavender, curry plants,

mint and thyme.

Spinney

This is our spinney or wooded area. We all use this area

lots. Year 2, last week, created fairy ladders as part of

their literacy topic. Year 3 & 4 collected sticks to build

3D shape models and EYFS and Year 1 have been using

their mud kitchen and making musical instruments out

of recycled materials.

Recycling

We try to use recycled materials as much as we can at school if

we can. We collect these at lunchtimes (lunchbox waste) and

have asked our parents to bring in recycled materials from home

which we can reuse in school too. EYFS love to use these

materials in their junk modelling. We have recently looked at the

damaging effects of plastic waste on our environment and

working with our school council are thinking about what else we

can do as a school to help.

Recycling

Some examples of using recycled materials- EYFS musical

instruments

Some examples of using materials from our environment –

woodland weaving

Recycling

Walkers Crisps This year we have been recycling crisp packets for Walkers. In

return we can earn money for the school. The crisp packets we send are shredded, turned into plastic

pellets and then they are used to make things like watering cans, park benches, plant pots and cool bags.

Future Projects

The Eden project in

Cornwall

Our next project is a

plastic bottle greenhouse

inspired by the Eden Project in

Cornwall.

What we’re

aiming for!

We’ve just started collecting plastic bottles for this project. We

will be involving children and their families in the design,

construction and use.

THANK

YOU!