University Researcher
What made you choose invertebrate diversity as your investigation topic?
Researcher: So for the project with school, we decided to look at insect, well, invertebrate diversity in different habitat types. And so we chose different areas within the school grounds. They conveniently had a wooded area, a big grass and a big grass field. So that kind of made two very different habitats.
How did you structure the activities?
Researcher: We had some classroom sessions where the students came up with some predictions about what they thought might happen. And so we did that before we set out the pitfall traps. Then we left the pitfall traps for about a week and then the kids all went out and we went and had a look to see what we could find. I also went in for an extra session towards the end where I just happened to have some moth traps. So we set up some moth traps again in different places in the school grounds.
What surprised you most?
Researcher: I think it’s a year four class and I’d never taught them (that age) before. So that was quite different. The way that the knowledge the children had and also kind of the biases the children already had, like against the natural world – that already seemed to be embedded in them. They didn’t care. But equally, when prodded and given the encouragement, they’re very quickly engaged with that kind of thing.
What have you taken from this experience?
Researcher: For me, it made me think a bit more about how we teach it and how we as a university engage with primary level education. For me, that was quite useful because I am a teacher full time basically at university. So seeing it at primary school end is quite interesting.
What happens next?
Researcher: I’m looking at applying for a partnership grant. We’re going to look at invertebrate diversity in different patches of the playground in the school. And then we’re going to dig up what is grass or just bare earth and lay some wildflower turf onto those areas. And then the children will then come back the following year. Then when they’re in year two, they’ll go back again and then quantify the insects they see in those patches and see if there’s a measured increase in diversity or abundance of these insects. If schools can do that, and if we can show that we can even just like cutting up a 20 metres squared of playing grass and replacing it with wildflower turf, and it looks nice too.