News from the Eco Centre

Update January 2012

ENRICHMENT AT THE ECO-CENTRE

During the last half of the winter term, 60 students joined us at the eco-centre for Wednesday afternoon enrichment.  As well as planting bulbs, wildflowers and the odd lettuce seed, activities included building a wildlife hotel, making recycled paper, constructing bird scaring devices from everyday objects and producing a month by month vegetable planting plan.

Recycled paper was made from scraps taken from the paper recycling bins, and the resulting sheets were decorated with leaves, small flowers and wildflower seeds and made into very attractive Christmas cards which could be planted (after the Christmas festivities) to give a nice miniature wildflower display.

Vast arrays of different ideas were employed to design and create bird scarers for the eco-centre garden. These included scarecrows of various shapes and sizes, and shiny, rustly, twisty-turny things all designed to make a bird think twice before stealing seeds or seedlings. These will be appearing in our garden around about spring time so look out for them!

The cold weather was braved by a select few, keen to collect objects for our wildlife hotel. With a wheelbarrow to bring back their booty, they scoured the school grounds for bricks, tiles, leaves, pine cones, wood; in fact anything that your average mini-beast would enjoy snuggling down into during the winter months. The result can be seen in the corner of the eco-centre garden and already has quite a few guests.

OTHER NEWS

The eco-centre now has a compost heap, so the collection of scraps from the canteen and food technology can begin. Before long we will be producing our own lovely compost. A birdfeeder has also been installed, so hopefully we should see a nice range of species turning up- will keep you posted! 
 

Update October 2011

We are up and running!!! The Eco Centre is completed apart from some planting which is still to be carried out in the garden at half term.

It is a beautiful architectural building providing a wonderful range of facilities for students. It has been designed with environmental features including solar photovoltaic panels, a solar pump for the rainwater tank and a window system designed to control and optimise the temperature in the building. Inside there is a laboratory and IT suite whilst outside we have a greenhouse and large landscaped garden containing raised beds, cloches, espaliers, vegetable plots, a large pond and bog garden. The garden will take time to evolve, but it will be an exciting area for students to learn about the natural environment and enjoy getting their hands dirty!!

Our first project has been to set up the wormery that has been kindly donated to the school. Having raided my compost bin for a supply of tiger worms these are now happily ensconced in the bin along with some half composted green stuff. Hopefully they will thrive and prosper and provide good rich worm compost for the garden. We hope to build a large three bin compost system after half term and this along with the wormery should be able to cater for much of the schools green waste. We have had offers of vegetable waste from food technology and the canteen so the worms are going to be busy!

See more pictures in our photo gallery

Julie Lane and Jo Handford
Eco Centre Technicians