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Free seeds for schools as BBC launches Breathing Places Schools
On 31 January the BBC added to its successful Breathing Places campaign with a new Schools programme and the launch of the first ‘Do One Thing’ activity which is aimed directly at schools.
The idea is that all schools can do something to encourage and support wildlife even if they have limited space and have never done any activities of this kind before. The core ‘Do One Thing’ activities are designed to be simple enough to be carried out by children in primary schools, with more complex extension activities being made available through the BBC’s various partner bodies in the Breathing Places project, to encourage those schools that are already active in this area to join in.
The main activity for the spring term of 2008 is planting for wildlife, and a further ‘Do One Thing’ activity will follow every term for the next two years.
From 31 January, schools are being invited to register free on the BBC website to access activity sheets, packs of flower seeds, teachers’ notes and instructions, and other materials that can help them to start creating havens for wildlife around their school. You can find out more at: www.bbc.co.uk/breathingplaces/schools/
This activity will support the Year of Food and Farming growing theme as it will help to embed the concept of growing in schools. Although the five seeds are all flowers (Sunflower, Corn Poppy, Pot Marigold, Cornflower and Borage) all have been used in some way in cooking or for herbal/medicinal purposes, and the project will encourage those schools that undertake the seed growing activity to think more broadly about other kinds of plants that they could grow in the future.
FACE (Farming and Countryside Education) has been a lead partner in the development of this project and they have added some new pages to the Biodiversity section of their website, at: www.face-online.org.uk/biodiversity/
These provide more information about the BBC Breathing Places Schools project and give details of the five flowers that will be grown from the seed packs provided for schools this term. For more information about this work and FACE’s contribution please contact Fiona Boardman at: [email protected]