Did you know that the Penwith Landscape Partnership have wildlife identification kits? These different kits allow volunteers and Penwith residents learn more about the nature and biodiversity on their doorstep! One organisation that borrowed such a kit was Alverton Primary School in Penzance. Daisy, Outdoor Learning Leader at the school, shares this from their experience;
"We borrowed a big insect hunting kit from Penwith Landscape Partnership to see what interesting creatures we could find on our school field and we had a brilliant time! There was so much equipment / books / ID sheets that we could take out whole classes, and ended up taking the whole of our year 2 and 3s out as we got a bit addicted to it... Because we got big sweeping nets in the kit we were able to hunt things as a group, shaking trees into the nets, and the simple ID sheets were great to get a general idea about what we had. The books were super detailed, so the children just had a look at the pictures, but I was fascinated with the hoverflies book and ended up taking it home and reading it at bedtime! I discovered that some really unpleasant grubs were baby hoverflies and will be beautiful in the summer – which made me feel a lot better about them. And several children who were not relaxed around insects or frightened of them found themselves drawn into the excitement. I also took a small group out with the kit as one of our pupils was so scared of spiders she couldn’t play on the field at playtime and was missing out. She agreed to just be about whilst the others looked for insects but not have to come close to them. But there were so many fascinating creatures she got closer and closer and ended up holding a jar with a spider inside! She watched it for a while and said “Actually...some spiders are quite cute.” And now she is playing on the field (although her wellies are kept inside because even if they are cute in a jar, in your welly a spider is a different deal). Amazing! We are doing a whole school science week in March and are going to hopefully borrow some more equipment as its been so helpful."
We're thrilled that the children at Alverton Primary School were able to learn so much from one of our kits!
