Should gardening be taught in schools?
Why was the start to spring 2013 so cold?
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‘March 2013 was the second coldest March in the UK record since 1910, and was associated with a negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation. A number of potential drivers may predispose the climate system to a state which accounts for these conditions…’
Article from the Met Office
Street play- winning out over the car…
Article about residents in Colchester who have won permission to close their street to traffic for two hours every day so that their children can play outside.
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Streets closed to cars for children who don’t have access to green space
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Organisers hope it will help boost community spirit among neighbours
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Similar schemes running across Bristol where idea was first mooted
Managing risk in play provision- free guide
Play England’s no nonsense guide on how to balance safety and challenge in play area design and management.
Making a summer shower
Link to instructions on how to use empty milk bottles to create watering devices that are gentle on the plants and good for children to use (as opposed to hosing everyone in the class or straining with /getting feet wet with watering cans….)
Inclusive Play Design Guide
Produced for the US play world by Let Kids Play, this Guide nevertheless includes some very useful ideas of wider relevance, especially on the layout and access to play areas and enriching the play experiences of all children, including those with some form of disability. Free download.
Steaming up for National Science and Engineering Week
Gressenhall Farm & Workhouse Museum, Norfolk
‘Tomorrow we’ll be warming things up and getting the fire going to steam up our engines! All to celebrate National Science and Engineering Week.
Take a look on our website to find out what a day in the life of an Engineering Volunteer involves.’
Nature lies dormant ahead of first day of spring
‘Conservationists report lack of budding plants, animals returning to hibernation and migrating birds held back by wintry weather
One hundred years ago, on the official first day of spring, the Anglo-Welsh war poet and naturalist Edward Thomas set off from Clapham Common in London to cycle and walk to the Quantock Hills in Somerset. The record of his journey, called In Pursuit of Spring, became a nature-writing classic, telling of exuberant chiffchaffs and house martins, daffodils and cowslips in full flower and “honeysuckle in such profusion as I had never before seen”.
Had Thomas taken the same route today, he might not have seen very much wildlife – and could well have frozen. Mist and fog, rain, a bitter north wind, and temperatures just above freezing are forecast for , the first “official” day of spring…’
Four Seasons in One Day – survey on climate change and the garden
Old School Garden 