Mary Elton Primary School

Mary Elton Primary School

SWGfL Report Harmful Content

Hedgehog STEM Challenge March 2018

The plan is to involve as many schools as possible, to encourage parents, neighbours and the community to ensure there is a gap in our garden fences to enable hedgehogs to continue to access garden habitats. Hedgehogs are in steep decline - fencing off of gardens is a major issues! See Burrington School's video posted on Newsround website for more information. Burrington School, Northleaze and Mary Elton are the main leaders in the programme.

To support the project our children have built buggies with child made hedgehogs inside and tested transporting them via elastic power through a model hole in a fence. The most accurate buggy in KS1 and KS2 will go to the final that is taking place on Thursday 15th March in the Victoria Rooms of Bristol University. 20 plus schools are taking part from across Somerset, Bristol and North Somerset.

We have camera traps to lend to families who think they now have hedgehogs using the gaps/holes in their fences. Video footage will provide us with evidence of impact. Schools from outside our group of 20 will potentially be able to access camera traps - so we will get video footage from across the country. Spring Watch want our video footage to show! Please see Mr Thurgur if you would like to borrow a camera trap. 

The main learning points of the initiative are  

  • the importance of wildlife corridors to ensure species survive in our shrinking world ( hedgehog corridors in this case)
  • the importance and power of collaboration 
  • that children can see that they can impact on their world and make a positive contribution

Please see our gallery showing the work each year group has put into this project.