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Biodiversity on School Sites

Biodiversity is essential because it impacts on all of our lives both directly and indirectly.

All species including humans require a range of basic resources to keep them alive and healthy. Humans need oxygen to breathe, water to drink, food to eat and shelter from the weather. The living things on our planet provide many of these things for us so their conservation is vital if we are to survive. Human life itself depends on relationships between all living creatures and their environment, yet a lot of human activity is having a negative impact on biodiversity across the world. In the UK the growth of urban development, intensive farming methods, the introduction of non-native species, transport and pollution has led to huge habitat and species decline and in some cases extinction.

The need to restore this balance of nature has never been so urgent and where better to start than by raising awareness amongst our younger generation on order to ensure a better future.

We recognise the need to teach our children values for the health and well being of local habitats, plants and animals as well as humans by encouraging the use of outdoors to teach and learn about biodiversity.  School grounds provide an ideal opportunity to introduce children to the natural environment and biodiversity. They offer a fantastic facility for outdoor education that can complement classroom-based activities and Blaenau Gwent are greatly encouraging nature areas within our school grounds which can add to this.

Blaenau Gwents objectives:-

• to converse and enhance biodiversity
• raise awareness amongst teachers and pupils of the term biodiversity and the level of understanding of this scope
• raise the number of local outdoor experiences involving direct contact with nature and those working to care for it
• demonstrate the benefits to staff and pupils of integrating biodiversity into our lives in order to promote Health and well being
• to make our pupils aware of how dependent we are on other species, i.e. all our food come from their living things as does much of our clothing and all of the paper and wood we use
• to encourage pupils to enjoy the outdoors and have fun whilst learning how to help the environment

A lot of biodiversity issues are far too big and complex to be tackled with a school environment however these are steps we can take to protect our own areas and work towards a better future.  Why not take a few small simple steps in your schools to help conserve and enhance biodiversity in your area!  A few things that you could do in the school grounds could be:

• create a wildflower meadow – an area rich in locally native wildflowers will support a variety of wildlife including insects, birds and mammals
• leave areas of grass to grow longer – this will provide much needed cover for animals such as amphibians, reptiles and mammals travelling from one place to another
• build pond or marshy area and enhance with water loving plants – long stretches of hedgerow provide corridors for small mammals and amphibians travelling between different areas
• create a compost area using organic waste from the school, making sure that is open and wildlife such as birds and slow worms can make their homes
• put up bird, bat and insect boxes around the school on fences and trees and create a bird feeing station with lots of different food available
• if you don’t have a pond, put out a dish of water or a water table, to provide water for any wildlife, which may visit.

For more information contact the Ecologist on 01495 355779 or email Claire.pooley@blaenau-gwent.gov.uk or Michelle Evans, School Support Officer, Planning and Development 01495 355416 or michelle.evans@blaenau-gwent.gov.uk.