First Impressions

Source:

• The Isle of May National Nature Reserve, teaching pack (SNH)
• The Moine Mhor National Nature Reserve, local schools pack (SNH)
   

Time

10 + 10 minutes

You will need

• notebooks/sheet & pencils
• describing the bog activity sheet (see download section)
• leaflets, photographs and maps of the place you are going to visit

Did you know?

Peat bogs contain many unusual and colourful inhabitants, if you look closely enough! Moine Mhor and Flanders Moss National Nature Reserves are excellent places to visit to study a bog.  Staff may be available to support your visit and Moine Mhor has an education pack that you may find useful.  See 'Where to go' for more infomation. 

Before the activity

Give the children a little introduction to the bog they are going to visit. Tell them a little bit about the plants and animals that live there and show them some photographs of the landscape. Explain why bogs are important and how people have used them in the past. The factsheets in the Wild, Wet and Wonderful teaching pack (see downloads) will provide any information you need in addition to what might be available for your chosen destination.

The activity

When you arrive at the bog, it may be a little wet and windy and the landscape may look boring and featureless from inside the minibus. Ask the children to write down 10 words or more which convey their ‘First Impressions’ in their notebooks/sheets. For younger children you can ask for suggestions, which are then written down by you onto a large shared sheet of paper. You can help by suggesting opposites, for example, is it wild or tame? ; is it wet or dry? ; is it windy or calm? ; is it boring looking or interesting? etc. Ask the children to label this sheet 'First Impressions'.

About midway through your visit, perhaps after a running about game, get the class to sit down quietly, somewhere warm and dry where they are looking at the bog. Get them to close their eyes and breathe deeply a few times. Just spend a couple of minutes without saying anything, just looking, listening and smelling the bog. Fill in the activity sheet 'Describing the Bog' or just get them to add a title ‘Middle Impressions’ and note down 10 words again to describe the bog, in their notebooks/sheets.

Either on the way back in the minibus or back in the classroom the following day, repeat the activity, this time under the heading 'Final Impressions'. Discuss and compare the three sets of impressions. Get each member of the class to write one sentence containing their first impression of the bog and then get each person to read out their sentence in turn. Ask each member of the class to write one sentence containing their key last impressions of the bog, and to read this out in turn. Were all the impressions similar? Did any change? What do they think about the bog they visited now?  Is it a beautiful place worth preserving or a wasteland which should be made more productive and useful? Would they want to go there again?

Suggested Follow up

Write a letter to a friend who is going to be going on a similar trip with a different school. Would you encourage them to look forward to their day out? Which activities would you suggest that they ask to do? What features of interest would you suggest that they look out for? What questions did you forget to ask the ranger that they could ask for you?

Downloads

SNH publications

• All About Sphagnum Moss
• The Wild, Wet and Wonderful Teaching Pack has easy to read factsheets on peat formation, plants, animals, food webs and chains,  and the history of peatlands, as well as classroom activity ideas.

Describing the Bog activity sheet

Curriculum Links

•  Science - main
• Languages - main

AgeRange

2, 3