Sixteen intrepid Islanders met at Medina Valley Centre yesterday afternoon to take part in the Medina Rediscovered canoe safari. We all had a brilliant afternoon, many thanks to Roger Herbert and his team at MVC for their expert tuition and hospitality. The cup of tea at the end of the afternoon was particularly welcome.
Look at us conquering the river:
Look how much fun we had during Wetlands Week 2007 with over 200 school children looking for bugs and pretending to be a flounder. Wetlands Week is funded by Leader+ and delivered by Island 2000.
We all had an absolutely corking week learning about wetland habitats and wildlife. Four Island schools participated during the week and attended workshops run by Ian, Hannah and Jo from Island 2000, Jill Mears from the Environment Agency and Kathy Grogan from Wight Wildlife.
Jill’s Minibeast Safari went down a storm, with all the children scouring the hedgerows for bugs and insects to view in their magnifier pots. We used the excellent FSC field guides to identify everything that was found.
Look at all the weird and wonderful minibeasts that the children made using arts materials brought by Island 2000’s Arts team
Kathy Grogan and her team from Wight Wildlife laid on some exciting games and activities to show the children how different species were adapted to life in wetlands areas. We all had great fun pretending to be frogs eating flies and curlews eating worms.
Bring Your Binoculars 7th July 2007
Meet an expert from the RSPB at Brading Railway Station for a 2 mile stroll at Brading Marshes looking out for wetland birds, dragonflies and butterflies along the way. The walk will last approximately 2 1/2 hours.
Wear Your Wellies 8th July 2007
An easy walk from Merstone Station along the new Gift To Nature Troll Trail to the fabulous Birchmore Pond - one of the Island’s very best pond dipping spots. We’ll see lots of birds, flowers and butterflies along the way, we’ll sweep the hedges and verges for bugs and minibeasts, and we’ll try to catch sticklebacks and ferocious gragonfly larvae in the pond.
An intrepid band of children worked with Danny and Kev to build solar powered boats and cars last week. We’re one of the practitioners in this Creative Partnerships Southampton and Isle of Wight funded project in Greenmount Primary School.
As you can see from the picture the solar powered cars were hugely popular - we weren’t able to test the boats, unfortunately, as I underestimated just how long it takes to inflate a 12 foot paddling pool using a single foot
pump. Even with the help of a whole bunch of children we couldn’t get the thing blown up so we’ve put off the boat testing until our next session.
I’ve also included a picture of Danny.
In an effort to standardise office procedures and normalise our environmental impact we’ve settled upon a funky Education Team uniform. We’re still waiting for the rainbow dungarees to be delivered but thought it might be useful to model our new safety footwear range. The picture shows Suzie, Jill and Kev demonstrating how useful our clogs are for impromptu, stand-up meetings.
[Here's one for the kids - If Kev's wearing the pink trousers can you figure out who the hairy legs belong to?]
I’ve also included a picture of Danny for no reason other than I know he likes to see himself online.
Ian and Suzie met pupils from Love Lane Primary School on the Cowes-Newport cyclepath this morning on the hunt for ferocious minibeasts and bugs. A fantastically
warm sunny morning - perfect for butterflies and bees feasting on the hedgerow flowers we passed.
Unfortunately we didn’t find anything dangerous, but there was certainly a lot of life in them there nettles.
Ian brought the bush-sweeper with him so that we could tap the hedgerows and discover the life within. We found a lot of spiders, beetles, leaf hoppers, ladybirds, earwigs, crickets, caterpillars, a red admiral and a white admiral. Not bad for an hour’s work.
On 26 April Ryde High School hosted a celebration event for the continuing success of their Growing Places Project; a joint project between Creative Partnerships, Ryde High and Island 2000. The Project has created an allotment area in the school grounds and transformed an old concrete garage into a beautiful shed.
Along the way, all areas of the curriculum have been involved in various aspects of the project; building the allotments, growing flowers and vegetables, creating art installations in the garden area, performing on the outdoor stage, tracing the ecological footprint of the school, using the area during lesson times for inspiration and creating a film of the project for media studies.
The celebration event included a student version of the Greek Tragedy “Theseus and the Minotaur”, and the first of this year’s planting was completed in the new herb bed.
Island 2000’s esteemed leader planted ceremonial elms at the new gateposts, and gave the project his blessing.
We’ve just done the first in the series of wildlife and heritage walks focusing on the Medina Valley from the Solent right up to Newport Quay. The overall project is called ‘Medina Rediscovered’ (funded by Heritage Lottery) and the walks bit ‘Doorstep Medina’. There is also a schools programme making use of all the Medina’s varied characteristics and features as local learning resources, plugging into as many bits of the curriculum as we can. The walk on Thursday went from Whippingham down to the river at Island Harbour and back again and what a splendid spring day it was! 2 Swallows, Orange Tips, Tortioseshells, Brimstones, Oystercatchers shouting all over the place, Great-crested Grebe and about a million Primroses. We went by St. Mildred’s Church too where, in the graveyard, you can find Samuel Saunders and Uffa Fox, two absolutely extraordinary men who must have helped to make East Cowes the buzzing hub of engineering and design brilliance that it once was.
Being so close to them is kind of inspiring and makes you want to rush back and do something spectacular for the town. We love East Cowes.
Spent the early afternoon helping build sandmen at Steephill Cove. We so rarely get snow on the Isle of Wight, that kids here seldom get to build snowmen, so we thought we’d try a variation on a theme! Everyone had great fun, and Dan even found time for a spot of sun bathing with his new sand-friend…
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