Nature explorers

Curious to discover the flora and fauna around you as the seasons change? Then join us and become a little nature explorer!

Primary

With Claire:

P3-P5 : Monday, 15h10 – 16h10

Learning to observe and understand nature while staying in school? It’s possible!

EEB4 has been involved in the ‘green and clean school’ project for several years. (https://eeb4.be/project-greencleanschool/). Biodiversity is one of the topics chosen by the committee, made up of teachers and pupils. Thanks to them, our school is rich in trees, bushes and flowers that are home to a discreet but diverse wild flora and fauna.

Ready to discover the trees, birds, spiders, insects, sowbugs, slugs and snails, mosses and lichens…. that populate school playgrounds?

Annual activity : In the beginning of the year, the group will make a list of all the different species of trees in the school. Each pupil will be able to choose one and observe it throughout the year. Each month, the group will go round the trees to take photos of them and observe their evolution.  A timeline of all the information gathered will be created as they go along.

Seasonal activities:

Autumn : collecting leaves and making a herbarium; borrowing leaves; observing plants in the vegetable garden in autumn; exploring seeds; how they spread; fungi families

Winter : Sedentary birds; bark prints; trees/evergreen shrubs; winter blooms (hazel, alder); What happens to animals in winter? Migration, hibernation.

Spring : Wild flowers in the playground; study of the number of different species on 1m² of lawn; insects and spiders; birdsong; pollination; bees; the vegetable garden in spring and herbivorous insects, slugs, snails, etc.

Transversal and one-off activities

  • Making insect hotels from recycled materials
  • Observation of an ecosystem: an old wall, a vegetable patch, a shovel of earth
  • Focus on a species or taxon

The main goal of this activity is to raise children’s awareness to nature and the preservation of biodiversity. By taking part in this activity, the children are encouraged to feed their curiosity and wonder about nature, improve their sense of observation, and learn to record the information they have gathered through descriptions, drawings and reports. By the end of the year, they will be capable of recognising a wide range of common plant and animal species.