Curriculum Links:

• Science: Living things and their habitats/ Animals/ Plants/ Working scientifically
• Geography: Physical Geography / Geographical skills and fieldwork/ Locational Knowledge/ Place knowledge
• Includes: Art / Literacy and Team working / PSHE – Living in the wider world

Suitable for: KS2 but can be adapted for KS1

Time required: 1 to 2 days depending on the activity

Location: School and various fieldwork locations in West Cumbria.

Note:

The WCRT can bring the river to your school so no need to travel.

All sessions free to primary schools in Allerdale and Copeland

 

Workshops available are:

 

Wild River Days

Learn all about West Cumbria’s amazing rivers with hands on sessions for KS2 with Wild River Days – Start in the classroom, using Ordnance Survey maps to identify your local rivers, streams and lakes, finding out how different land conditions affect rivers by carrying out a soil experiment and learn about the animals that live in and along rivers. Then head to your local river where you’ll use fieldwork techniques to observe, measure and record river features and get into the river for some river dipping.

 

People on the Keekle Days

3 different workshops available

Pollution workshop:  Learn about:

• plastic pollution and the impact it has on our waterways and oceans
• the process of removing the plastic from the Keekle riverbed and restoring it back to a natural river system
• what happens to the plastic we’re removing from the river by following its recycling journey.

Stop-motion animation: Work with a professional artist to create a stop-motion animation film about the River Keekle project.

Plastic sculptures: Work with a local artist to make plastic sculptures to display in school

 

Mussels in the Classroom

Learn about the fascinating critically endangered freshwater mussel which has its last stronghold in England in the rivers of Copeland. The session includes:

• time spent in the classroom with activities and completing a work booklet
• a trip to the river to see the freshwater mussel using bathyscopes (glass-bottomed viewing buckets) and underwater cameras

 

School Assemblies

Short 30-minute introductions to rivers and plastic pollution.

 

Now also available online:

The West Cumbria Rivers Trust are bringing the sessions they normally run in primary schools into your home!  Join their Learning and Engagement Officer, Cathy Gruba, to learn all about rivers and their amazing wildlife.

• Episode one – River Words
• Episode two – Cumbria’s Amazing Freshwater Wildlife
• Episode three – Pond Dipping
• Episode four – Pollution
• Episode five – Slowing the Flow

All workshops and activity sheets are available on our website.