As you can tell from our Green Flag success we are working hard to save our environment, but we don't just save water and reduce and recycle our rubbish we also love our mini-beasts.

We joined the save the bees campaign in 2019 and learned all about how important the bees are. If it wasn't for the bees we'd have no fruit or vegetables, and because they work so hard for us we decided to build them their very own B&B in Rathmore.

Miss Hetherington even rescued a bee and moved them in!

 

Although life got a bit odd over the next couple of years we never lost our love of mini-beasts, and we certainly never forgot how important the bees are.

So we were delighted to welcome Edel Heeran, from the Heritage at Schools Scheme, on 29th March this year. We learned how to map out habitats in our school grounds and then we got to work on building new, safe homes for our mini-beast friends.

This was a great day, we worked hard and learned lots, Ms Heeran was very nice and she thought we did very well.

We also entered the ESB Science Blast where we studied Mini-Beasts, we conducted experiments and created graphs etc with the evidence gathered and we were sent a reward to acknowledge our participation in the programme. Louise from Teagasc was the scientific expert involved and she was very helpful throughout the process. 

We surveyed our bug motels and even drew portraits of some of our guests.

The judges enjoyed our work;

I was incredibly impressed with the student's enthusiasm, knowledge and their project as a whole. The class had a clear question for their project; 'Where in our school can you find the most mini-beasts?' The experiment they designed and conducted was able to answer this question. The most popular spot was the damp spot beside the container. I was particularly impressed that they constructed each of the bug dorms themselves and made sure they were all the same to get a fair result. This demonstrates real scientific skill and understanding of experimental design. They built, observed, monitored in a manner that does not disturb the mini-beasts, this also shows the thought and effort that went into their project. The students themselves were able to clearly explain what they had done and present the graphs of their findings to me. I was very impressed with these graphs, as this is exactly how results would be presented in a lab like mine. The graphs clearly showed which insects were found in each bug dorm and which insects were found the most. The second experiment looking at camouflage colours was a very clever idea as different colour traps are used in research to trap different insects.

The class had great ideas on how to continue the work and plan to build a larger bug dorm  to keep permanently at the school. This is a great for both the project and encouraging biodiversity in their school as insects are so important for the environment. It would be very interesting to see how the insects found in this bug dorm change with the seasons, as different insects are more active at different times of the year.

I really enjoyed discussing insects with the class, they had great knowledge of insects and their questions demonstrated curiosity and scientific thinking. I am sure all these students would make great scientists if they would like to be as this project already shows that they are. Congratulations on your great work and also to your teacher who helped make it happen.

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