Kent students take part in ‘The Big Bumblebee Discovery’

This week, 27 Year 4 students from the school - one of over eighty taking part from Kent - came to Dungeness B.

The Big Bumblebee Discovery, which EDF Energy is running in partnership with the British Science Association, will see students across the country act as real-life scientific researchers. Each school will be given a lavender plant and will monitor how many different species of bumblebee it attracts.

Before their tour, station guide Donna visited Lydd Primary to get them started, and today the children are busy recording the number of bees in the school farm.

The results of this Citizen Science project will be used by researchers from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology to map bumblebee numbers across Britain and to assess the impact of changing population numbers on crop pollination.

Miss Ferguson, Year 4 teacher at Lydd Primary School, said: “It was great to have someone from the station come out to the school to introduce the Big Bumblebee Experiment to us. We’re counting bees already and the pupils are enjoying getting stuck in and counting bees already! The trip to Dungeness B was really exciting, especially as it’s just around the corner, and it further fuelled their interest in our current science topics. The links with the station are a great opportunity to get involved in a real-life science experiment, whilst getting close to nature and having fun along the way.”