Last week, Year 5 visited the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust at the Whistlestop Centre in Matlock Bath.
The children spent half a day learning about the life of the River Derwent, investigating different ways to gather statistics and information about flow rate and temperature and deciding whether the life present indicated if the river was clean or not.
Despite some small falls into the river, everyone had a wonderful time, identifying creatures and seeing who could collect the most water in their wellies!
In the afternoon the focus turned to otters and water voles – both of which are known to live along the local riverbanks. How wonderful to find out that we are lucky enough to have one of the largest populations of water voles, right on our doorstep?!
It was a great day and a perfect learning experience for Year 5’s current project.
