More about Big Schools' BirdwatchBig Schools' Birdwatch is an annual birdwatching event run by us for schools throughout the UK. It is part of the world's biggest annual birdwatching event - our very own Big Garden Birdwatch. Now in its ninth year, Big Schools' Birdwatch has gone from strength to strength with 2009 seeing a record number of people taking part - just under 90,000 UK school children and teachers. While Big Garden Birdwatch takes place over one weekend in January, Big Schools' Birdwatch provides an opportunity for children to take part whilst at school, and can be done over a two-week period. What do we do with your results?You may think that if you only saw a few birds during your Birdwatch, or were unlucky and saw none at all, that we won't want to hear from you. This is not true - we want to hear from you no matter what you saw. This is because we put together all the data we receive to create an overview of what birds are making the most of school grounds across the UK. If one school reports seeing fewer birds than last year, this could just be due to local factors - the weather, or a new building on site - keeping the birds away. But if lots of surveys come back saying that they saw fewer of a specific bird, alarm bells would start to ring with our scientists, and we would need to start trying to work out what was happening, and what people could do to help. Sustainable schoolsMonitoring bird species in your school grounds is simple and inclusive - helping to make learning relevant to pupils through a practical activity suited to all. Big Schools' Birdwatch offers a wide range of exciting learning opportunities – from practical outdoors work, and data handling, to developing your school grounds for nature conservation. In addition, this survey creates opportunities for greater personalisation of learning. Big Schools' Birdwatch also encourages schools to develop their grounds in ways that help pupils learn about the natural world and sustainable living through biodiversity and conservation, and is an activity you can link to Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship. Taking part in this activity can also lead to environmental benefits to local communities.
This is the first birdwatch that our school has done and the class involved really enjoyed it. This will become an annual event at our school. It is also helping towards our green flag status. Classteacher, Kingswinford |