Supporting Our Schools
Greening Steyning have been working with local schools on a variety of small projects to help them introduce more eco topics into the children’s curriculum. Building Bug Hotels
In May we started working with Steyning Primary School on a biodiversity project for the summer fayre.
The bug hotel project was constructed from a donated wooden bookshelf and reclaimed cladding and wood. We commissioned a local artist (Ruby.whitworth@hotmail.com) to hand burn a personalised sign for the school.
Materials that attract bugs such as bark, pine cones, bamboo, leaves, terracotta pots and logs were sourced by the children and their families/ friends and the bug hotel was completed by the children on the 30th of June, during the summer fayre.
The June rain didn't stop the fun of the afternoon. A great event hosted by the school.
It was a lovely little project and a pleasure to work alongside Steyning Primary School to support the children's creativity and learning around biodiversity.
'A big thank you to Clare Robinson and Steyning Primary School, the children, their families and friends, Ruby Whitworth for the beautiful sign and my husband Russell for helping me build the frame.' - Katie Barnes, volunteer.
Restoring Extinct Species
Greening Steyning have been working with Emer Nicholson at the Towers to develop a small gardening club which has been very successful and has utilised the large greenhouse on that site. The children have really enjoyed growing flowers, salad and vegetables and we hope to expand this next year as Derek at Daylands Farm is keen to be involved.
As a side effect of working with the school and talking to Matthew at the Steyning Downland Scheme (SDS) we were able to connect the school with a project that Matthew was developing with Wakehurst Place to re-introduce a plant currently extinct in Sussex. The Star Fruit (Damasonium Alisma) is a wetland plant that has been extinct for over a 100 years and is ideally suited to the area around the upper pond in the SDS.
A small group of children from the Towers visited Wakehurst Place where Star Fruit seeds are held in the Millenium Seed Bank. Wakehurst have germinated some seeds and taught the children how to do this for themselves. The children are now trying to incubate their own Star Fruit seeds, which is difficult because they are 'incredibly fussy little seeds', and if successful will then plant them around the SDS pond.
This has been a wonderful opportunity for the children to learn about how Wakehurst are working to maintain our biodiversity and then actually be involved in an important project for the local area. We all owe Matthew and Emer a big 'Thank You!' for making this happen. - Robin Johnson, volunteer.
Exploring No-Dig
The year 5 children at Steyning Primary were studying 'sowing and growing' this term and the Schools Liaison team at Greening Steyning offered to go into the school and work with the children to help them learn about 'No-Dig' gardening.
The plan was to talk to them about the concepts that underly no-dig gardening and soil health, show them a short video that Charles Dowding (the originator of the approach) has released where he shows children how to create a no-dig vegetable patch from scratch and then actually build two no-dig patches.
Simon Parker did a lively and interactive talk with the children, the video went down well and the children had a lot of fun building their new no-dig patches.
'Thanks very much to the teachers, Hannah Wetjen and Hannah Robinson for allowing us to make this possible but most importantly we are incredibly grateful to Heritage Products (https://heritage-products.co.uk) for donating 20 bags of compost and Derek Crush for donating seedlings to plant as this activity would not have been possible without their generosity.' Robin Johnson, volunteer.
If you would be interested in working with a small but growing group of volunteers working with the local schools please contact: schools@greeningsteyning.org.uk
We’d love to hear from you.