Penny Dacey, Spring Bulbs Project Coordinator, has been busy helping young budding scientists get outside and investigate the impact of climate change in an engaging and creative way!
 

Many of you may have heard of this Spring Bulbs project, as it’s been running since 2005! For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, here’s an overview. 
 

Pupils are asked to help Professor Plant, a friendly cartoon scientist, to explore the impact of a changing climate on the flowering dates of spring bulbs. Pupils do this by taking part in an annual study that involves documenting and submitting weather and flower data.

How it started and how it’s going…

The project began in Wales, under Danielle Cowell, Digital Learning Program Manager at Amgueddfa Cymru, but through funding from the Edina Trust has expanded to be UK wide.
 

Amgueddfa Cymru now engages 175 schools each year through the Spring Bulbs for Schools Investigation! That’s a lot of bulbs!

Let’s talk science!

Schools that participate in the investigation take part for a full academic year. They receive their resource packs in late September, plant their bulbs on 20 October, and begin taking weather records on 1 November through to 31 March.

Schools are asked to take weather records (temperature and rainfall readings) for every day that they are in school, and to upload this data to the Amgueddfa Cymru website at the end of each week. They are also asked to monitor their plants and to document the flowering date and the height of their plants on that date to the website. The result is that we can now compare the flowering dates for spring bulbs in Wales, England, Scotland and Northern Ireland to those of previous years and look at how changing weather patterns may have impacted on these dates. Isn’t that amazing?

Making a difference - from scientific skills to well-being

The investigation supports the development of scientific knowledge and skills, including an understanding of plant growth, the impact of climate change on the environment, and data collection and analysis. Students are able to apply scientific methods and concepts to a real-world scenario, which helps them to understand the importance and relevance of science in their lives. The process of caring for their plants, getting outdoors (in all weather) and working together to collect the data has numerous benefits, both for well-being and in developing lifelong connections to nature.

Do you know of any schools that would like to take part?

Applications open on a first come first serve basis to primary schools in Wales in late April. If you know of any schools that would like to take part, please ask them to check
out the following pages for more information:
Spring Bulbs Website
Spring Bulbs Blog
Spring Bulbs Twitter

Hi Bulb Buddies,

I hope it’s been a lovely, sunny start to May where you are.  The weather is getting warmer, and the days are getting longer. Here are a few things you can do to care for nature in May:

Go on a nature walk

Take a walk in your local park, woods, or countryside. Observe the different types of trees, flowers, and insects you come across. You could even take a notebook to draw and write about what you see. Why not practice mindfulness while you are outdoors, and really listen, look, smell and feel your surroundings. This Mindful Tour resource is developed for the gardens at St Fagans National Museum of History, but it contains some fantastic tips that can be applied to any mindful walk. 

Plant a garden

You don't need a big garden to grow plants. You could plant flowers in a pot or even in an old shoe! Why not create an up-cycled plant pot? You could do some research into pollinators to see which plants best support them. Pollinators like bees and butterflies are essential to the survival of plants and ecosystems but they are under threat because of habitat loss, climate change and pollution. Schools that entered weather and flower data to the Amgueddfa Cymru website will receive seeds that will help to support pollinators. 

Be mindful of water

Water is essential for all living things, but we should try to conserve it. Some ways you could do this are by turning off the tap while you brush your teeth, taking shorter showers or re-using water from the washing-up to water your plants! You can also help nature by making sure there is water in your garden or school grounds, such as in the form of a small pond or a birdbath. The bird spotting sheets on the right can help you to identify any common garden birds you might see. 

No Mow May

Some of you may have heard of the campaign #NoMowMay where people are asked to not mow sections of their garden this month to help wildlife. You may notice more areas that are left to grow wild over the coming weeks, and this campaign may be why. Be mindful of these spaces and the wild plants, insects and animals that might be making them their home. There are some areas that will adopt this approach throughout the summer, and councils are being encouraged to follow suit and leave safe spaces for wildlife. Maybe you could ask your school if they will support this by leaving an area of the grounds un-mowed? Maybe you could plant any pollinator seeds you receive for taking part in the Spring Bulbs for Schools Investigation in this space? 

There are many other small actions that can be taken to make a difference to our local spaces. Why not share any further ideas you have for exploring or conserving nature in the comments section below? Remember, every action helps when it comes to protecting our planet. So, get outside, explore, have fun, and make a difference! 

Professor Plant

Hi Bulb Buddies, 

Many of you may be wondering what to do with your plants now that they have flowered. You don't need to trim your plant or re-plant your bulb until at least seven weeks after it has flowered. Leave your plants outside in the sunshine, as this allows the bulb to continue storing energy for the following year. 

Once your bulb has flowered you may wish to take it home, plant it in your school or even re-use your pot to grow something else. Read through the instructions below to decide how you would like to look after your bulb.

Keep your bulb in your pot

• Trim back the leaves. 

• Store your pot outside and out of the way until the following spring, when your flowers will start to grow again! Make sure your soil doesn’t dry out over the summer by watering when required.

Empty your pot

• Trim back the leaves. 

• Empty your pot onto some newspaper and look for your bulbs. 

• Shake them to remove any excess soil.

• Inspect your bulbs, only keep the ones that are look healthy and are of a good size. Discard those that are soft or rotten. Every few years bulbs double. When they double two bulbs will be joined together. If this is the case, pull them away from one another very carefully. When they are doubling, they make fewer flowers because they are putting their energy into making more bulbs. By separating them you should get more flowers. 

Plant your bulbs in your garden or school

• Follow the instructions on how to empty your pot.

• Find an area to plant the bulbs, choose a sunny or lightly shaded position. 

• Dig a hole for each bulb that is twice as deep as the height of your bulb and make sure the shoot is pointing upwards and the roots downwards.

• Plant each bulb two or three bulb widths apart.

• Your bulbs should now flower year after year. Inspect the bulbs and divide any doubles every three years to increase flowering. 

• You could now re-use your pot to plant a summer herb or flower. You may receive some seeds for taking part in the investigation that could be planted in your pots. 

Dry out your bulbs and store them until the following autumn

• If you don’t have a garden and you want to use your plant pot to grow something else you may wish to dry out your bulbs and store them over the summer.

• Follow the instructions on how to empty your pot.

• Lay bulbs on a tray or newspaper to dry for 1 week. Place in a labelled paper bag and store in a cool place until they are ready to plant again in November.

There are a number of options to choose from here. Hopefully you will be able to enjoy your plants again next Spring.

Professor Plant

Spring has arrived Bulb Buddies,

I’m sure we’ve all noticed signs of spring, including crocus and daffodil plants in full bloom! Have you ever wondered why these plants flower, and how to tell when they have flowered? Let's explore this together. 

Daffodils and crocuses are both bulb plants, which means that they grow from bulbs that are planted in the ground. These bulbs store energy for the plant to use when it's ready to grow. The bulbs stay dormant through most of the winter and begin to grow as the weather warms, which is when their shoots first emerge from the soil. Shoots appear first, so that the leaves can produce food for the plant through photosynthesis, where energy from sunlight is used to turn carbon dioxide and water into sugar and oxygen. The plants use the sugar as food, to provide energy to continue growing and to replenish their bulb ready for the following winter. As the plants continue to grow, they produce leaves, stems, and flowers.

You can tell when these plants have flowered by looking for the blossoms on the stem.  Daffodils usually have one yellow or white trumpet-shaped flower on a long stem, while crocuses have smaller, cup-shaped flowers that come in a variety of colours like purple, white, and yellow. These bright, colourful flowers attract pollinating insects like bees and butterflies. Pollen is sticky, so it attaches to pollinating insects and is taken by them to different flowers. Pollination happens when pollen from the male part of a flower (the stamen) is transferred to the female part of a flower (the pistil). Once this happens, the flower can produce seeds.

After the flowers have bloomed and the seeds have been produced, the plants start to die back. Our little bulbs will then go dormant again, until the next growing season.

Some schools have shared that their plants have flowered. You can see which schools have sent in flowering records by looking at the project map and the flower graphs. Remember, you can also look at results from previous years to compare. Why not have a look to see if your school has taken part in the project before? 

I’ve attached the Keeping Flower Records resource to the right of the page. This looks at how to take height measurements for your plants and how to tell when the flower has fully opened. It also lists some resources on the website, like the activity sheets for naming parts of plants. 

We ask that you note the date that your plant first flowers and the height of your plant on that date to your flowering chart. You can then upload this information to the website when next entering your weather data. Remember, we ask for measurements in mm. If you accidentally record your height in cm it will show on the website in mm. This means that a 15cm daffodil becomes a 15mm (1.5cm) daffodil! 

I’ve attached some botanical illustrations we’ve been sent by schools in previous years. Why not make a study of your plants and draw what you see? It can be interesting to make regular drawings of your plants, to see how they change over time. 

We’ve watched our plants from bulb to flower. I have seen from the comments that many of you have been fascinated by the changes you’ve seen. I’ve attached an activity sheet for creating an Origami booklet that explores the life of a bulb. There is a version that you can colour in yourself and a version that is already in colour. 

We are in the last week of weather data collection. We ask that schools upload all of their weather data to the website by 31 March. If your plants have flowered, please upload your flowering data by 31 March. If your plants have not yet flowered, please let us know in the comments. There is further guidance around this in the attached ‘Keeping Flower Records’ resource. 

Please share photos with us by email or Twitter, it’s always lovely to see the plants in bloom. Please share your thoughts on the project in the comments section when uploading your data, you could also let us know what you think the mystery bulbs were this year!

Keep up the good work Bulb Buddies,

Professor Plant & Baby Bulb

Hello Bulb Buddies,

Thank you for the comments and observations you sent in with last week’s weather readings. I’m expecting that some of Friday’s weather comments will mention snow, as many areas across the UK will have woken up to snow and ice this morning. I thought this might be a good time to look at how Meteorologists (weather scientists) measure snow. 

It is a lot trickier to measure the amount of snow that falls than it is to measure the amount of rain. This is because snow misbehaves! Snow is often blown by the wind into drifts, which causes some areas of deep snow and less snow in the areas around it. Because the snow fall is uneven the measurements from these places will be wrong. This is why we have to measure snow on flat surfaces, in the open and away from areas where drifts happen. Snow also likes to play games with Meteorologists who want to measure it, it melts into water and re-freezes into ice. This means that the snow measured on the ground isn’t always the same as the amount of snow that has fallen. Another problem is that new snow settles on old snow, so it is difficult to tell how much snow has fallen in one day from the snow that fell the day before.

Meteorologists have to take all these tricks the snow plays, and work around them to discover how much snow has fallen. They look at snow fall (the amount of snow that falls in one day) and snow depth (how deep the total snow level is, old snow and new snow). One way that Meteorologists measure snow fall is to use a piece of ply wood. They place the wood in an open location away from areas where snow drifts occur, and measure the snow on the board at 6hr intervals, clearing the snow from the board each time they measure it. This means they are only measuring the snow from that day, which will tell them how much snow has fallen on that day in that area.

Snow fall can also be measured in its melted state, as water. This means that you can use your rain gauge to measure the water equivalent of snow fall. If you only get a bit of snow then it should melt in your rain gauge anyway. But if you get a lot of snow, take your rain gauge inside to the warm and wait for the snow to melt into water. Then measure the water in the same way as you have done each week and report this as rain fall in your weather logs. 

If you have snow and enough time for an extra experiment – why not have a go at measuring snow depth? To do this all you need is a ruler (also known as a snow stick!). Place the snow stick into the snow until it touches the surface underneath and read the depth of the snow. Take these measurements from flat surfaces (benches work well) in open areas and away from snow drifts. You need to take at least three separate measurements to work out the average snow depth in your area. You work out the average measurement by adding the different readings together and dividing them by the number of measurements. So, if I measured the snow depth of three surfaces at 7cm, 9cm and 6cm, I would add these together (7+9+6 =22) and divide that by three, because there are three readings (22÷3=7.33). So, 7.33cm would be my average reading for snow depth on that date. 

Weather stations such as the MET Office have come up with new ways of measuring snow depth, using new technologies. The picture on the right shows one of the MET Offices snow stations. These use laser sensors to measure how deep the snow is on the flat surface placed below it. This means that Meteorologists can collect readings from all over the country at the push of a button, which is far more reliable and a lot easier than sending people out into the cold with snow sticks! The map on the right shows how many snow stations the MET office has and where these are, is there one close to you? 

If you have snow and measure the snow fall with your rain gauge or the snow depth with a snow stick, then please tell me in the ‘comments’ section when you are logging your weekly records. I would be very interested to know what the snow depth is compared to the snow fall collected in your rain gauge.

Keep up the good work Bulb Buddies, 

Professor Plant