NB: The notes before Easter have been written in retrospect, which means they lack detail. In future, I’ll be writing notes immediately afterwards, and also asking for immediate & short feedback from students and participants.
Ecologist Carys started in the classroom with an exercise around food webs and different living things (plants, animals, insects, fungi etc), and was drawing suggestions from the class and discussing the relationships between them.
We walked along the south bank of the Afon Aeron, past the allotments, and to the small garden south-west facing garden at Jewsons where the separate project Tŵr Gwyllt is being built by artist Rebecca Wyn Kelly. When we arrived, Rebecca was at the controls of a mini-digger, prepping the site!
Carys split the students up into three groups: plants, animals and fungi, and then the groups searched for their namesakes. A student found a toad under a log pile. And another student found some hedgehog poo.
Resident toad
I was with the plant group initially but there was quite some spontaneous movement between the groups and around the site, particularly when the toad and the poo was found!
Selection of different plants found on the site
There was a wide range of plant species, which we took back to the classroom, and which I think Carys is making a species list to add to Aderyn database.
Alas, there weren’t really any fungi. And the invertebrates weren’t out in abundance, because of the time of year. The students did catch a lot of spiders though with the pooters!
The walk was about 20 minutes, so we quickly ran out of time and had to head back for lunch. The feedback from the students via teachers Carys and Anwen was really positive.
View larger map of Jewson garden site
## Oriel Gallery
Reflections
Jake
- I messed up the starting times, so was a bit late! Need to make sure I’m there for debriefing at beginning.
- I will do proper feedback for subsequent workshops.
- Sheena had prepared box of common native plants. This is a fantastic reference, and a potential side project (labelling the plants using the Llyfr Natur book), as well as backup for a rainy day classroom activity.
- March workshop best suited to plants, and spring flowering plants as well. Dearth of fungi. Not a huge range of invertebrates (mostly spiders!)
- Really good idea to label the hand lens cases to keep track of them – I called them
AB 1etc. - Best to keep wildlife ID quiz and LERC Wales App setup separate
Tŵr Gwyllt at Aberaeron
Mishaps & magic at Esgair Arth
