Taste of University…

On a warm, sunny day the Botanic Garden and Ruskin School of Art ran a Taster Day workshop for Year 5 pupils of St Barnabas Primary School, Oxford.

These are designed to give and exciting insight as to what it might be like to study a subject at a higher level in a university setting and encourage interest in Higher Education generally.

Pupils spent their time studying the human form and making observational drawings of their own hands and feet and from models of the human skeleton. They worked alongside artist / student Tara Benjamin- Morgan finding out what it is like to work in a studio setting. 

Whilst at the Garden pupils immersed themselves in plants from the Rainforest, Desert and Insectivorous collections.  They found out how plants are adapted to different habitats making sketches of things that interested them. Pupils were then set the challenge of designing a ‘Superplant’ that could survive in an unusual habitat. The used their sketches and imaginations to come up with their creations.

In March pupils from other schools had a taste of what it can be like to be a plant scientist. These sessions coincided specifically with British Science Week. Pupils had a taste of lab work (pulling plants apart), field work (exploring the Glasshouses) and ethnobotany (By seeing what was in their packed lunches). The sessions were led by the Education team at the Garden but also ran with help from DPhil researchers from the Dept. of Plant Sciences. 

This was a chance for the researchers to work with a different type of audience, part of their module ‘Getting the Public Excited about Your Research’. The team of researchers have spent time working with families, general public and secondary school pupils, learning how to engage with different audiences and explain their work in an engaging way without the use of technical jargon!

Emma Willliams, Education Officer

Arboretum Outreach and Teacher Training

This year we have two new outreach sessions designed for primary schools.  The outreach programme runs from January to Easter and enables children across Oxfordshire to engage with the Arboretum collection without leaving their schools. 

“Spectacular Seeds”, the new outreach session for Key Stage 2, is divided into three sections.  In the first section, the children examine a range of different seeds to decide how they are dispersed.  This hands on activity encourages the children to explore the properties of each seed to determine whether it might travel on the wind, be carried by animals or self-disperse.  In the second section, the children have the opportunity to handle a range of exciting seeds from the Botanic Garden and Arboretum handling collection.  This year, the cone from the Bristlecone fir (Abies bracteata) and the seed pod from the Magnolia campbellii are proving to be the most popular and are capturing the imagination of children all across the county.  The final section of this exciting session is the Oak Life Cycle game, where the children all start the game as acorns, then must gain all the resources necessary for germination.  Those that succeed become seedlings, while those that do not become soil.  In order for the seedlings to become saplings, they must gain all the resources necessary for photosynthesis.  Those that succeed move to the next stage of their life cycle while the rest join the soil team.  Then finally the saplings must photosynthesise in order to become mature trees, so there is one more mad dash for resources to see who will survive.  This game has proved an excellent way for the children to consider the obstacles facing a seed as it tries to grow into a mature tree, while also helping them to understand why most plants produce so many seeds.

Cone from a Bristlecone Fir

“What is a tree?” is the new outreach session designed for Foundation and Key Stage 1.  By using our specially designed giant felt crab apple tree, the children have the opportunity to introduce seasonal changes by adding spring leaves and blossom to our tree, swapping the blossom for apples as the flowers are pollinated in summer, then exchanging green leaves for orange, yellow and brown leaves as summer gives way to autumn. Finally the children take on the role of the wind as winter approaches and the leaves fall from the tree to leave the branches bare once more.  This leads to a discussion on the purpose of the apples, and examination of the seeds in a real apple.  We then look closely at a range of seeds from the Botanic garden and Arboretum handling collection.  With this age group, the seed from the coco de mer is still the one which results in the best reaction although the cone from the Coulter pine (Pinus coulteri) is also proving very popular.

Our felt tree through the seasons

Friday 27^th February was our Geography in the Great Outdoors continuing professional development course for teachers.  During the course, we made the most of the blue sky and sunshine while exploring different ways in which the teachers can help children to engage with maps and better understand them.  Our map-building activity was a great success with plenty of imagination showing through as we placed road, built bridges and marked woodland onto our 3D sections of Ordnance Survey maps.  A special orienteering course was set up in the Coppice at the Arboretum so that the teachers could test it and relate the options to their own school grounds.

Teachers taking part in a map building activity

Visit Harcourt Arboretum over the Easter holidays to take part in one of the following:

Shaping up for Spring trail – available throughout the Easter holidays

Arboretum Easter Egg Hunt – available from 10.30am on Tuesday 31^st March

Family friendly afternoon: Shaping up for Spring, Animals – Tuesday 31^st March, 1pm to 4pm

Family friendly afternoon: Shaping up for Spring, Plants – Tuesday 7^th April, 1pm to 4pm

Or visit the Botanic Garden for:

Family friendly fun: Get Gardening! – Wednesday 8^th April 11am to 1pm

Backpacks are available to borrow from the tickets offices at both sites every day of the holidays.

Combat the icy winds of February

Feeling the icy winds of February? 

Take a trip around the World to discover something new about the producers who grow some of our favourite staple crops. Fairtrade Fortnight runs until 8th March and if you have a chance, come into the Garden to see the display on the producers of our tea, cocoa and sugar. 

The Fairtrade foundation have also produced a very moving film about how Fairtrade business and specifically the Fairtrade premium paid to Fairtrade Co-operatives has helped to transform thousands of precarious lives around the World. See it here: http://fortnight.fairtrade.org.uk/

 

 

You may not know (I didn’t until I started reading about it!) that co-operatives in receipt of the Fairtrade Premium (which is paid on top of the ‘fair’ price producers receive for their crops) vote on how that money is best spent. It could be used to build infrastructure and resources of benefit to the whole community such as the provision of school buildings, medical clinics, ambulances, roads, clean water supplies or sometimes something apparently quite humble like bicycles that allow local children to travel longer distances to attend their schools, or literacy classes for the adults in the co-operative.

It’s easy in the supermarket to look at the few pennies more that Fairtrade products may cost but now I try to look at the products on display and try to imagine that hands that have raised these plants, tended them, watered and weeded them and the better lives they are striving towards for their families.

Families a little closer to home joined us last Wednesday to help make giant tropical fruits, a tropical rainforest vine covered in leaves, plus had a chance to sketch a sumptuous, fruity still life in the Conservatory.

So come into the Glasshouses on a cold day in Oxford and check out the tea, sugar and cocoa plants that we have grown, along with all the other Fairtrade staples such as bananas, pineapple, coffee, cotton and spices! And remember to check out that Fairtrade film! http://fortnight.fairtrade.org.uk/

Never a dull day

In mid January it can be hard to find the motivation to step into the garden.  The days are short and dull, there may be rain forecast, and if the sun is shining then you will have to wrap up in so many layers it may feel like it’s just not worth it.  After the excesses of the festive season, the glitter, the lights and the merriment, it feels like there is nothing but dark days ahead until the first bulbs of spring pop up.

Hamamamellis mollis after a shower

But think again.  Maybe without the brash lights and glitter, and without the full on blooms of spring and summer we can see true beauty in the garden?  Those stolen moments that can be so often overlooked.  The rich chestnut browns and copper coloured stems. The bent heads held in ice and the quietness and stillness of a beautiful sunset.  This is a unique time of year when we gardeners can have a rest from the endless cycle of weeding and mowing, and we can enjoy the beauty of the garden with a clear conscience.

And the scent...! The botanic garden is full of scent right now. It is so hard to capture an aroma to relive it at a later date.  Maybe the scent seems more beautiful when all around is dormant.  The many plants flowering now, such as the Hamamelis mollis (witch hazel), the Edgeworthia chrysantha and the Chimonanthus praecox (Winter sweet), are all vying for the attention of the few insects that are in flight, using scent as their tool.

As the sun sets in the mid afternoon, the shape of the gnarled Juglans nigra (Black Walnut) and the Magnolia x soulangeana take on new importance when the texture and colour of the bark is no longer visible.

The silhouette of Magnolia x soulangeana  

The botanic garden is open every day throughout January, and the arboretum is open throughout the week, so there is plenty of time to catch those moments that can be overlooked, and to gain the restfulness and calm before the inevitable spring madness takes over.