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06.06.18 Exploring - Today, while one group was working with the other classes we took our First News newspapers up to our wild area to read. It was such a sunny day we had to find shade to sit in. As we read we shared stories we found about environmentalism and conservation as well as other interesting articles. We've noticed that every edition of First News we read has eco stories in it because our environment is a hot news topic.

Day 13.

06.06.18 - Sharing - And the winners of the willow herb picking competition are 6.22!!!! Check out these huge piles of willow herb they all picked. We think they're all winners for working so hard to develop biodiversity in our wild area. We hope they enjoyed their time working with us.

06.06.18 - Sharing - After our presentation in the classroom we took each class up to our wild area in turn to pick willow herb and to explore the area. Here are 6.23 who have gathered a huge pile and are very proud of their work. 6.22 and 6.21 came out after them and also picked huge piles. I wonder who the winners are...

06.06.18 - Sharing - Today we spent the whole day sharing our learning and our work with all the other P6 classes. We divided into three groups and each group visited another P6 class. We had prepared a presentation to tell them all about John Muir, The John Muir Award and what we've been doing. We then showed them the rose bay willow herb and explained why we're clearing it and asked for their help!

05.06.18 - Exploring - The highlight of our day today happened just as we were packing up to go home. Morven spotted an unusual beetle and picked it up carefully to show to Ranger Greig who got really excited when she saw it as she belived it to be a very rare beetle. UPDATE: It was a Click Beetle!!! Buglife identified it as a Click Beetle, of the species Ctenicera cuprea. (now we're learning Latin) Although it is quite common across the UK there are no records here in East Renfrewshire, so we have recorded the first one & sent our records in to the national recorder. We will have made a new dot on the distribution map. More Citizen Science! It is called the Click Beetle because if it is frightened it can flick itself up in the air with a clicking sound.

05.06.18 - Explore - We have become experts at catching bees safely without hurting or annoying them. We've also started to learn how to identify them. So far in our wild area we have identified a Red-Tailed bumble bee which Ali caught, a Tree Bee (Hypnorum Bee) which Harry caught, and a Lytorum Bee which Murray caught. Our favourite is pictured here with Arran and is called the Carder Bee (bombu pascuorum) It's our favourite because of the very Scottish nickname we call it, the Irn Bru Bee because of it's bright orange patch on it's back. We're going to record all of our bees on the Great British Bee Count - more citizen science!

05.06.18 - Exploring - Today while we were doing our bioblitz some of us examined a pile of willow herb plants that we had picked a few weeks ago. It's been decomposing in the sun for a few weeks now and was really warm! We pulled it apart to see what it looked like and we found 100s of ants and their eggs. As soon as we uncovered them the ants grabbed their eggs and carried them away from the hot sunlight. We watched for a shortwhile and were amazed at how quickly these tiny creatures got them all away. Very soon however Holly suggested we cover them up again so as not to cause any more damage or distress. By picking willow herb we've created a habitat for ants!