BCL are developing an Environmental and Educational Project and with the highly publicised COP26 UN climate summit at an end, this is the perfect time to announce our exciting project!
Introduction - Heritage focus
One of the project’s main focuses will be to ensure visitors, community groups and especially children learn about our local plant and animal habitats and the environmental impacts, like climate change, on these habitats. We will ensure the project is sustainable with its deliverables being designed and revised regularly to cover environmental and educational changes impacting on the project’s outcomes which could affect children and all other’s aspirations.
Society needs to try and better understand the impacts of the changing environment around us and we want to try and get the message across in particular to children to enable them to continue to think about the impacts of environmental change and how we can all help.
Phase 1:
We will develop and install an interactive educational and environmental hub within the conservatory which will enable visitors, particularly children, to be able to access information, through interactive screens showing a large variety of plants, insects and animals and the environmental dangers and changes affecting their existence, in particular climate change, and their role now and in the future.
Information will be accessible through the following:
1: Utilising interactive screen’s visuals, access to information on a huge variety of native insects, birds, mammals, rodents, amphibians, reptiles, spiders, trees and wildflowers. Tied into physical experiences such as wellbeing through exploratory walks and activities planned to support our project with local assistance, for example from the Park Rangers.
2: Enable users to understand what climate change is, what is causing it and what we need to do to stop it. Children will learn about all the elements that negatively impact our environment such as biodiversity loss, air(C02) and plastic pollution, deforestation, droughts, wildfires and food waste.
3: Bring up information on screens of any plant displayed in the conservatory. Covering all aspects of a plant’s cultural requirements, origin, flowering period, medicinal and the other uses of the plant in their native environment. Also provide similar information on a range of related endangered plants around the world.
4: An interactive screen adjacent to our own bee observation hive showing videos on the life and importance of bees which are deemed to be the world’s most important pollinator of food crops. Scottish Bee Association provide the current info loop which will be enhanced. Intention also to enable children to work with the SBA at educational sessions.
We have been successful in obtaining a grant of £5,000 from the Mushroom Trust together with £1,000 from SAC’S community fund. All of which will go to the monies required for the Environmental Project. BCL are also contributing in order we will have sufficient funding to commence and complete Phase 1. We have managed to strike up a partnership with Braehead Primary School with the first part of the project. Ms Rachael Carlisle, Deputy Head Teacher, will be part of the Design Team and we will have the students participating to help to shape the project.
