Learning

Williamstown Primary School pupils, in the Rhondda Valleys, were awarded first place amongst the sixty three Welsh schools taking part in the Museum's Spring Bulbs for Schools investigation this year.

The class of Super Scientists won a fun-packed nature trip to St Fagans: National History Museum where they were awarded certificates. As part of the day trip they studied newts, looked for mini-beasts, watched bats and built giant nests in the woodland!

Professor Plant: ''They all had a great day and should be very proud of how they represented their school. The standard was very high this year, the schools are getting better and better at recording and logging their data. Williamstown did extremely well with their recording and really got involved in the project from the start last November until the end in the spring - which came very late this year!"

Alison Hall, Teacher at Williamstown Primary: "The pupils said it was the best day out they had ever had - they loved viewing the bat roost in particular! In terms of the investigation, the children have have loved the whole process from planting and recording to measuring and waiting for the first bloom to appear. It has been great for improving their science, numeracy and ICT skills. We are now really enthused about nature and the environment and are keen to set-up more outdoor investigations in our school grounds".

If you would like to take part in this project next term - please complete the on-line application form: http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/1738/

To see our teacher evaluation report - follow this link: https://scan.wufoo.com/reports/spring-bulbs-for-schools-evaluation-report/

As you can see from the evaluation question below the project is very cross-curricular:

Hello!

I've been pretty quiet blog-wise but not work wise! Oriel 1 is now shut so I've been taking my art and craft activities further afield, trying out different locations on the site in St Fagans: National History Museum and going to Hay festival, Tafwyl, as well as doing some outreach work with schools.

Our quilting club is still going and our next meeting will be on 20 July and will be all day! from 11 until 1 and 2 until 4 (though you are welcome to just come along for some of it). I have also started up a knit and sew group, it's just a chance to come along and meet new people and exchange ideas and the next one of those is on 28 September from 11 until 1.

To keep up to date with what we're up to quilt and craft wise, have a look at our facebook page

We've also taken part in a few Craftivism projects and hope to do more of those over the next few months too. Again, there's a facebook page for that, although we don't just meet in the museum and take part in lots of other events!

And the other newish thing that I've been involved with is the St Fagans book group (yep, there's a facebook page for that too) which meets every month (next meeting 20 july) to discuss novels that have links with the site or have links with Wales. We also invite speakers to come and give us some context for the books too - so, for instance, when we read 'The Rebecca Rioter' by Amy Dillwyn, Sioned Hughes (curator: Politics, Trade and Religion) talked to us about the Tollhouse in St Fagans, when we 'read' (I'm yet to finish it) 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' by Hemingway, Heulwen Thomas talked to us about the Welsh links with the Spanish Civil War, and last meeting when we disussed 'The Hill of Dreams' by Arhtur Machen, writer and Machenite Catherine Fisher talked to us about Machen's life and times. The current book we are reading is Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel and we'll then be joined by Dr Madeleine Gray who'll be giving her historical take on the novel whilst we visit the church.

If you are interested in getting involved with any of these things please let me know! my email address is sian.lile@museumwales.ac.uk and I'd love to hear from you.

I have to get back to my crochet bunting now!

We’re very excited about our newest specimen on display here in the Clore Discovery Centre –an ichthyosaur skull that was found not far from here at Lavernock (near Penarth).

The skull is going to be on display throughout the summer and this is where you come in.

Instead of us writing an information panel based on what we know about the specimen, we’d rather find out what you would like to know.

So over the next couple of months come into the museum, investigate the specimen and leave your suggestions for what you’d like to discover about the ichthyosaur in the ballot box we’ve set up in the Clore Discovery Centre.

We’ve also got some exciting family workshops lined up where we’ll be learning more about the Jurassic seas that our Ichthyosaurs lived in.

 FOLLOW US ON TWITTER @cloreexplorer

Saturday 6^th July 2pm

Sunday 7^th July 2pm

Saturday 13^th July 2pm

The ‘Spring Bulbs for Schools’ project allows 1000s of schools scientists to work with Amgueddfa Cymru-National Museum Wales to investigate and understand climate change.

Since October 2005, school scientists have been keeping weather records and noting when their flowers open, as part of a long-term study looking at the effects of temperature on spring bulbs.

Certificates have now been sent out to all the 3,979 pupils that completed the project this year.

See Professor Plant's reports or download the spreadsheet to study the trends for yourself!

• Make graphs & frequency charts or calculate the mean.
• See if the flowers opened late in schools that recorded cold weather.
• See how temperature, sunshine and rainfall affect the average flowering dates.
• Look for trends between different locations.
   

Professor Plant

www.museumwales.ac.uk/scan/bulbs

Twitter http://twitter.com/Professor_Plant

Facebook Professor Plant

I announced the Winners and Runners Up of the Daffodil Drawing Competition a couple of weeks ago, and now their fantastic drawings are now up on our website for you all to see!

In this competition I was looking for botanical illustrations – these are pictures of plants drawn in a scientific way. This means I was looking for beautiful pictures but they also needed to have clear labels to show the different parts of the Daffodil.

1st, 2nd and 3rd prize winners will receive a bird watching kit with mini binoculars. Runners Up will receive flower seeds for the garden.

Click here to view this year’s Winners and Runners Up.

http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/3956/

Many thanks,

Prof P