Eco Club Sofia Jones, Head of Eco Club Prestatyn High School has an Eco Club and we are very enthusiastic about preserving the environment. Mr Rasmussen runs the club of about 10-15 students from Years 7-10, who come every Wednesday after school to do various activities.
We have planted hundreds of trees in the school grounds. We also have lots of insect-friendly flowers, a herb garden and several raised beds for vegetables and fruit. Over the last few years, we have used what we have grown to make pumpkin soup, strawberry ice cream, elderflower cordial, hash browns and even had a beetroot tie-dye session!
We are keen to make our school grounds as animal friendly as possible. Keep Wales Tidy helped us to install several bird and bat boxes. We have made mini-ponds and a dead hedge to provide habitat for insects to live. We allow part of the grass to grow longer to allow flowers to grow and give seed as well as feeding the birds. We make sure not to cut our hedges during the bird nesting season.
One of our most recent and expanding projects is our apiary. After attending the beginners’ beekeeping course with the Flintshire Beekeeping Association, Mr Rasmussen used some funding from Polli:Nation to acquire two nucs and two hives. We had whole school numeracy tasks based on bees to announce the arrival of bees to our school!
Since then, we have had hundreds of pupils come out to see the bees and watch them flying in and out of the hive. We are slowly building up the number of suits we have, to allow more and more students to learn about the wonderful lives of bees. During the summer term we were able to split one hive and catch a swarm to bring our total number of hives to four. They currently have a good supply of honey to see them through the winter (hopefully).
We have enjoyed the produce too! We have sold 40 jars of honey to raise money for our equipment and each member of our group was able to have a taster pot to take home. Soon, a local beekeeper will be running a session on using the wax we have collected from our hives. We look forward to spring when we can start to see the bees out in force again. The daffodil bulbs are planted, ready for their early foraging!
