Spring cleans and other things

Two S1 classes did a fantastic job of cleaning the far corners of our school grounds this week, as part of their Gold JASS Award. Thank you folks!

The gardening club were out as usual on Tuesday and we sorted out our soft fruit bed, giving each plant some well rotted manure and then covering the weedmatting with a new layer of bark chips. 

The Fair Trade group had stall at the S5 parents evening last night, providing a welcome service of tea, coffee and Fair Trade snacks and raising awareness of Fair Trade at the same time. 

And S3 Health & Food Technology pupils sowed seeds in our greenhouse to grow over the holidays - we planted two varieties of tomatoes, peppers, courgettes and basil, that they will be able to use in dishes later in the year.

Have a good break over Easter everyone.

First weeks back after the holidays

We've enjoyed some lovely weather after our return to school and doing some learning outside the classroom!  The vegetables grown by Health & Food Technology pupils in the greenhouse are now ripening nicely and being used in recipes.

 

A new gardening and wildlife club has started after school on a tuesday and did an amazing job this week weeding and clearing the area around the vegetable beds.

 

S1 classes have been out investigating the biodiversity in Roley's Wood as part of their Sustainable Development Education classes. These pupils found 12 different species of tree in their survey, well done folks!

 

Pre-summer holidays clean up

Pupils from across the year groups have been helping with a big pre-summer litter pick of the school grounds over the last few days of school.

These S4s tackled a particularly tricky section of dense woodland planting with lots of jaggy hawthorn bushes, with Mr Atha. Thanks guys!

These S2s did a wonderful job of the upper section of the burn just at the entrance to the school.

The wildflower meadows planted by pupils a few years ago are in full flower and look brilliant

Thanks to everyone who got involved.  The grounds now look brilliant and it's great to be leaving everywhere looking so lovely over the summer holidays. Have a good break and see you back on 13 August!

Wild food in Health & Food Technology

It's that time of year again, the S1 HFT classes have been learning about wild food and sampling fresh spring greens in Roley's Wood, including lime leaves, wild garlic and few flowered leek.

They also cook up some fantastic dishes featuring wild foraged ingredients from around the school grounds: clockwise from bottom left) nettle soup, potato and hawthorn leaf salad, dandelion flower pakora and cheese and wild leek scones. Don't they look superb!

CurriEco Nest Records 2014 - British Trust for Ornithology Nest Record Scheme

It has been a good start to the spring 2014 breeding season!

The roof-nesting Oystercatchers have returned and laid three eggs.  Two have hatched and we now have 2 chicks running around the roof!  The parents continue to defend them vigorously from predating gulls and crows.

In the quad the old box has not been used though Blue Tits inspected it earlier in the spring.  Instead they chose the old camera box for the first time in years.   Blackbirds have again nested in the flowering clemetis bushes in the quad and are busy feeding four large chicks. They nest there most years.

One of the new boxes put out in the winter in  northern woodland boundary strip has Bluetits in occupation, when we last looked there were nine eggs with the female brooding the eggs.

The Roley's Wood boxes have still to be properly inspected.

We are running three record cards at the moment and will make it four if we can get the quad camera to work.

If any staff or pupils wishes to see the birds close-up please speak with Mr Walton and we'll arrange a visit.

More Eco news from last term

Mr Sharpe's National 4 English class read the Carbon Diaries 2015, a novel about a young person's life in the UK in 2015 after drastic carbon rationing to combat runaway climate change. They then independently researched alternative fuels as a critical skills challenge.  Pupils presented the fruits of their research to staff and pupils from other classes in a 'Alternative Fuels Expo'. Nuclear fuels were voted best presentational stand - well done them!

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this year's Blythswood Shoe Box Appeal. Mrs Mackenzie and Mrs Reid were overwhelmed by the support shown by pupils during lunchtimes, wrapping, sorting and packing the boxes. We were able to send off 70 boxes to help bring some hope this Christmas.

Last term, S3 drama classes were invited to collaborate in a project with P1 at Currie Primary School to recreate Fairy Land in Roley's Wood. The P1s were studying a project in which Fairy Land has been destroyed due to the reduction in people believing in fairy tales and not reading enough. On Monday 28 October, the fairy tale characters landed in Roley's Wood and met the Primary 1 pupils. The Primary 1s met the fairy tale characters, found out about the predicaments they were in and helped to support their journey back to Fairy Land - by promising to read lots and continue to believe in Fairy Land.  This was a great opportuity for S3 pupils to experience Promenade theatre and Theatre in Education and they really enjoyed meeting with three classes of P1 pupils.

Winter clean up of Roley's Wood

25 S4 pupils volunteered to do a festive clean up of Roley's Wood today as the rubbish around the entrance to the wood had been building up.

Before - lots of litter particularly under the bridge

The litter A team at work...

Many thanks to Mrs MacKenzie, Mr Walton and all the pupils for their efforts, the wood now looks great going in to the Christmas holidays. Happy Christmas to all!

5 black bags full of litter and half a bag full of recycling later....

If you went down to the woods today....

... you may have come across some Currie pupils...

Cooking damper bread over a small group fire

or kick sampling the burn in Roley's Wood for invertebrates to test the water quality

SDE biodiversity investigations

The S1 sustainable development education classes have been learning about biodiversity over the last few weeks - the amazing variety of plants and animals who share this world with us. Last week they worked in groups to do a biodiversity investigation of Roley's Wood. This pair found 14 different species of tree in the wood - that's an S1 record!

Outdoor learning at Currie

With the fine weather we've been having for the last few weeks, pupils have been out in the school grounds and Roley's Wood on a regular basis.

S1 Art & Design pupils have been researching particular species of native tree and flowering plant, and their associated insects and birds for observational drawings. They found their species in Roley's Wood to draw from life, as well as using photographs.

In music, all S1 pupils found a quiet place to sit on their own in Roley's Wood to complete a 'sound map' - listening carefully to all the noises they could hear.  They then went on to create a composition based on these sounds, using instruments they made at home from recycled materials!

In Health and Food Technology, pupils have been out in the woods learning about wild food, and sampling some of the local delights, from few flowered leek and wild garlic to some tasty lime tree leaves.In the second lesson of thie unit, they cooked up some dishes using foraged ingredients, including dandelion flower pakora and nettle soup.

S3 Home Economics pupils planted up all the veg beds in the school, and sowed seed in our greenhouse.  they planted carrots (including a multi coloured Harlequin variety!), parsnips, beetroot, lettuce, radish, cauliflower, cucumber, courgette, pepper and chillis.  They will check on progress regularly, and the ingredients can then be used in the department!

Currie Ecology Nest Records Update - June 4th

(British Trust for Ornithology Nest Record Scheme)

A large brood of Great Tits (by J Buckley).  Our's only had 4 chicks (see below).  This may have been connected with the cold Spring.

Some of Currie Ecology checking Box 6

Date:  4th June 2013 – UPDATE 2
Nest Box  No./ Nest record No.	Location	Species		Nesting Activity	Notes
1/	Quad.	Blue Tit		Female brooding 7 live chicks	One egg did not hatch . The chicks are about four days old.  The male is coming to the box with food and making alarm calls
2/	Front (Sparrow)				Apparently unoccupied
3/	Front (Sparrow)				Apparently unoccupied
4/	Front (Sparrow)				Apparently unoccupied
5/	Roley’s Wood	Blue Tit		1 dead day-old chick	This is a failed nest – probably the chicks were eaten by a predator.
6/	Roley’s Wood	Great Tit		Four large chicks	Not far off fledging.  Each one was ringed with a unique BTO ring.  With this we might be able to follow their life story.
7/	Roley’s Wood			Nest started	More building in evidence but the nest is not yet complete - watch this space!
8/	Roley’s Wood			5 eggs	Female brooding. Can't be far off hatching now.  Not many eggs for a Blue Tit.
Open Nest Nest record No.
TBC	Quad.	Blackbird		Nest empty	The four fledged birds in their juvenile plumage have been in the Quad for the last week or so.  They are flying well!   The nest record card is off to the BTO for their database!

Currie Ecology Nest Records (British Trust for Ornithology Nest Record Scheme)

 

Date:  23rd May 2013 - Update
Nest Box  No./ Nest record No.	Location	Species		Nesting Activity	Notes
1/	Quad.	Blue Tit		Female brooding 8 eggs	Male is bring food for the female
2/	Front (Sparrow)				Apparently unoccupied
3/	Front (Sparrow)				Apparently unoccupied
4/	Front (Sparrow)				Apparently unoccupied
5/	Roley’s Wood	Blue Tit		Female brooding 9 eggs	Maybe more eggs to come!
6/	Roley’s Wood	Great Tit		Female on 4 chicks	Only about 2 days old!
7/	Roley’s Wood			Some nesting material inside	Looks like building stopped
8/	Roley’s Wood	Blue Tit		Nest with 3 eggs	Maybe more eggs to come
Open Nest - record No.
TBC	Quad.	Blackbird		Four large chicks	Almost ready to fledge.! This is the second brood of Blackbird s in the Quad. this year!  A record!

The Litter-Less Lunch Project!

 Last term two second year classes created a litter-less lunch campaign. We worked with professional film makers to devise a story board in small groups. The storyboard was to promote awareness of the effects of dropping litter.  The story board needed to show the consequences of dropping the litter and also needed a catchy slogan! The winning story board would be taken and made into a short advert and then would be entered into a competition against other schools. In class we looked at all of the story boards and scored them one to ten (one being the worst and ten being the best) on various attributes. We also got the eco team involved and asked them to choose their favourite, along with the teachers and Ms Jordan-our media expert.

It was decided that the winning story board was created by Billy, Dylan and Dale (2EN7) and a group of other second year pupils were chosen to take part in the filming of the advert. Their idea was: three friends are strolling through the woods; one of the girls drops a piece of litter and gets attacked by a tree!

We worked collaboratively with the professional film makers and spent the day filming in Roley’s wood. Working with film cameras and boom microphones helped to finish our film to the highest possible standard! Learning about white balance, focus, exposure and framing helped improve our knowledge of film techniques. The advert was prepared in three different stages, initially we learnt about the filming techniques, following that we began to film in Roley’s wood. It took a whole day but was definitely worth it! To finish, we began working with professional editing software and edited the advert to make it look professional! This would hopefully give us a good shot at winning the competition.

New bin stickers designed by Jonathan McVinnie

To promote our advert and to raise awareness we began a ‘missing’ campaign. The girl who had been attacked by the tree in the advert was now declared missing so we made posters and news reports to go up around the school. The film has now been shown to all the pupils to bring together the whole campaign and the anti-litter drive!

If we win the competition, our advert will be made to a professional standard and used in anti-litter work throughout the year in many different domains across Edinburgh. How exciting! There is also a viewing of the adverts for all schools involved at the Filmhouse, so we even get a taster of the successes film-makers have too.

We have really enjoyed this experience and would love to have an opportunity like this again. Thank you to all the people who made it possible as we have learnt some great skills for later in life! It has definitely opened our eyes to the different possible careers out there and it’s great to think that we’ve done our bit for the planet at the same time.

Fin Rutherford (2K1) and Eilidh Grubb (2K2)

To watch the film made by the S2 pupils check out http://vimeo.com/63733518

Treasure hunts in Roleys Wood

The S3 xl class were out in the woods last week setting up Easter egg treasure hunts for eachother. One group made a fantastic treasure map with a key, another gave a very detailed set of instructions to find the hidden red eggs. 

We were all most impressed by Connor Quinn's group who used rhyming couplets in their quest, with eggs hidden in a large clump of snowdrops to under the bridge - pretty amazing to have made up in 15 minutes!

"In the field of white
Hides the egg of red light

Next to blackened plastic lies
That which contains an animal which flies

Under the second dense tree
Hides red egg No. Three

Now where trolls of legend live
Is our final gift to give"

Explorer Scouts finish their project

The EDGE Explorer Scouts finished their Environmental Partnership Award with the school.

Planting 10 species of native wildflowers by the burn in Roley's Wood

Adding in the muck to the soft fruit bed

Covering with meed matting and making holes to plant the soft fruit bushes. 

 

 

Some of the Explorer Scouts with the finished bed of red currants, black currants, white currants and gooseberries.

Many thanks to Trish and Owen Davies, EDGE Explorer Scout Leaders, and all the Scouts for their help!

SDE

Our S1s are now doing an hour per week of Sustainable Development Edcuation throughout the year.

They recently finished the Climate Change unit of the course. After gaining an understanding of the causes and impacts of climate change, pupils did a role play of the Copenhagen Climate Conference that was held in 2009.   Each pupil took the part of a country and had to decide how they would negotiate for tougher or easier carbon targets.

The S1 classes are now studying Biodiversity, from an SDE perspective. We investigated the biodiversity in the school grounds and Roley's Wood, looking at how former and current pupils in the school created different habitats. After this we'll be moving on to looking at bees and the importance of bee conservation in more depth.

Two big spiders found on shrubs in Roley's Wood

Some of the different tree leaves found in Roley's Wood

The return of the Green Man!

Earlier this year Mrs Steel piloted a new lesson for S1s in Art & Design, creating Green Man sculptures in Roley's Wood. This week each of the S1 classes has been out in the woods, after learning a little about the history and significance of the Green Man through the ages.  They've been working in pairs to create fantastic faces out of clay and found natural materials; leaves, flowers, seeds, feathers and stones.   Go down to Roley's Wood today and see how many Green Men you can find staring back at you from amongst the trees...

 

 

S2 Eco Art

Our S2s have been enjoying the recent good weather and working out in the school grounds on our final projects in S2 Art & Design. We have been out drawing in the Green Garden, making tree collages from natural materials and showing off our fabulous rainforest-inspired masks, which we made using recycled materials, in Roley's Woods!

Green Man in Roley's Woods

1K2, Mrs Steel and Rachel Avery ventured into a sunny Roley's Woods this morning to capture the "spirit of nature". We worked in pairs to create our very own "Green Man" installations! We used all natural materials including found leaves, flowers, weeds, twigs, mud and clay to create interesting woodland face forms.

Pupils used their imagination and their excellent modelling skills to create a public exhibition in a natural  envirnoment. We hope that the school and local community can enjoy looking for the new characters lurking in the woods...