The Moss Forest

Source:

The Moine Mhor National Nature Reserve, local schools pack (SNH)

Time

20 minutes

You will need

• stiff paper or card & clipboards
• coloured pencils & charcoal sticks
• plastic bags to sit on
• a sunny day
• magnifying glasses (optional)

Did you know?

The name of the Moine Mhor National Nature Reserve means the Great Moss. It began to form 5000 years ago and is a remnant of one of Scotland's most ancient landscapes.  See the 'Where to go' section for more information on visiting Moine Mhor.  

Before the activity

Tell the class that they are going to turn into spiders for half an hour. To a spider the heather must look a bit like a dense forest, providing shelter from the wind and rain. The moss and lichens underneath would be like the grassy floor. They would meet other creatures, the damselflies would be like huge dragons swooping overhead, hunting midges would be like hunting deer.....See if they can feel how warm and sheltered it will be on the ground under the heather for the spider, compared to the wind they feel when they are standing up.

The activity

Let the pupils pick a spot on the bog to lie down on their fronts, their heads down amongst the heathers. They can now draw the bog from the spider's point of view. Start by drawing the shadow from the ‘heather forest’. With their paper on the ground they can move it around until they get an interesting shadow from the plants falling across the card. They can copy the shadows onto the card using the charcoal and then fill in the rest of the amazing landscape. Draw all the features as seen from the spider’s point of view, using the magnifying glasses or just by looking closely. Maybe there are giant plants with hairy leaves or lichens growing like fruit trees! They could also draw in other huge creatures wandering across the ‘moss plains’, like snails or ants, or perhaps just the wing tip of a dragonfly or the leg or beak of a bird.

They could then fill in the worksheet 'describing a bog' (see downloads)

Suggested Follow up

Get the pupils to think up a peatlands food chain that includes a spider, and then illustrate and label their food chain.  Ask the pupils to look for evidence of other food chains on the Bog. Can they see any nibbling caterpillars or insects trapped in the sticky leaves of a sundew? Can they spot any hen harriers or the remains of a bird kill? Can they see any seedling trees that have been browsed? (roe deer).

Read extracts from a book such as ‘Gulliver's Travels’ where Gulliver is a giant in the land of tiny people and tiny in the land of the giants. Then ask the pupils to write a poem or story about living on the bog, through the thoughts, feelings or eyes of a bog creature.

Downloads

Describing the bog worksheet

Additional Information

• All About Sphagnum Moss - search the Education and Teachers Resources series of SNH Publications
• Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
• Second Nature, Society, Science and Technology, (Environmental Studies support pack) available from the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds)

Curriculum Links

• Expressive Arts (main)
• Language

AgeRange

2, 3