This half term, Year 6 took their Geography learning out of the classroom and into the river, quite literally!
Having studied rivers in class, Laura from the Chilterns and Chalk Streams Project came into school to talk to us about our very own chalk stream, the River Ver. We learned about the importance of the river and the wildlife that it sustains and then after lunch we headed out to the river to take part in two fieldwork activities.
The first activity was river dipping, which was run by volunteers from the River Ver Society. We were given nets and shown how to kick up the river bed to disturb the creatures hiding in the river, with the hope that they would then swim into our nets. It was incredibly exciting to empty our nets into the trays to examine the numerous creatures that we had caught!
After that, we then collected scientific data on the width, depth and flow of the river. This also involved us getting into the river (again, much excitement – and a few wet feet!) and in order to measure the speed of the flow we timed how long it took for 5 dog biscuits to float along a 5-metre stretch of the river!
Commented one very keen participant, “It was such a brilliant trip; I loved it!” Huge thanks to Laura from the Chilterns and Chalk Stream Project and John from the River Ver Society as well as the parents who accompanied us on the trip.