The School Trip to Windmill

Well today it certainly appeared that the new Windmill year was fully back on swing with our first school group visit of 2012.  The group in question was class P5 from Robert Shaw Primary school.  The session was based around water and  how it can be conserved. This was done through three fun hands on activities: building a rain water collector, modelling a river flow and taking part in a water conservation trail around the site.

Welcome to Windmill!

For the rain water collector task, Matt split pupils into groups and tasked them with building a collector using only plastic sheeting, sticks, a plant pot and tape/ string. The intention was to collect as much water as possible from a square metre area, and channel this into a bucket using only the materials provided. It got pupils to work together as a team, while thinking about what shape is most effective to collect rainfall. The pupils created all sorts of contraptions, with varying levels of success. It ended up being a dry day, so we used watering cans instead to test how much could be caught, with sometimes messy results!

Matt and his team begin collecting 'rain'

Is this an effective rain collector? Matt finds out

For Tracey's river flow activity, a large bucket of water was channelled along a tray of sand, to simulate the flow of a river. Instead of flowing in a straight line, the 'river' created meanders (bends), showing how water acts in real life river systems.

'Let's flood Buckingham Palace!' - the children place clay house (and palace) models beside the 'river' to see if they would flood

'Can we have a flood yet?' - Tracey demonstrates how a river flows

Rosie engaged the children in an exciting water conservation trail of the site, showing pupils different methods used on the allotment to help conserve water. Armed with maps and marker pens, the task certainly got pupils thinking about the importance of water conservation, and how everyone can do their own bit to save water.

Smile! Rosie with her team holding an all important map

Rain = tastey fruit! Rosie's team

The pupils finished the morning enthusiastic, and full of questions, after a highly enjoyable few hours! We rounded off the day doing a few tasks around the allotment, such as working on levelling the contemplation area (well done Dan and Ellis), and some weeding. It can safely be said that today has been a highly enjoyable and successful day down at the allotment!

Last but by no means least - we mustn't forget the fantastic weeding done by our regulars