June 30th, 2016
Students in the enrichment class at Parkway PS love it when they get to visit an outdoor education centre and have hands-on learning and when outdoor education specialist Sean McCammon visits their class.
When Sean visited the class recently, he was speaking about the bee hives he has at the Laurel Creek Nature Centre. He told the class how he was having some issues with one of his hives and mentioned that new developments and technology are making beekeeping much easier. Seans spoke of the flow hive, a new hive developed in Australia that makes collecting honey as easy as turning on a tap!
The enrichment class thought it was time to thank Sean for always making outdoor learning so fun. They decided they were going to get him one of the flow hives as a thank you.
Their efforts started small with bake sales and popcorn sales. Grade 8 student Madiha brought a proposal to her teacher to raise the profile of their fundraising efforts, and soon the entire school was involved! They set a fundraising goal of $1000 and before they knew it, they had reached their goal.
The flow hive arrived and was delivered to Sean at the Nature Centre. Once the hive was up and running with bees making honey in their new home, the class came out to see the new hive in action.
With almost 16,000 bees living in the hive, it was a flurry of activity! Bees have been busy gathering pollen and Sean hopes to have the first batch of honey from the new hive in a few weeks.
Madhia sees outdoor education as more than just fun trips to the Nature Centre, it’s about responsibility, “as students and future leaders, it’s important for us to take care of the environment so we can enjoy it and so can future generations to come,” she said.
Students had a great day at the Nature Centre, going on hikes and seeing the activity in the new hive. For the Madhia, the best part of her day was seeing how happy Sean was when he was showing her class the new hive, “it was nice to see the smile on his face because he always puts a smile on ours.”
The enrichment class from Parkway PS celebrates the addition of the new flow hive at Laurel Creek Nature Centre
Bees are busy making honey in the new flow hive
Students help put the second box on the hive, giving bees more space to produce more honey
The new Flow Hive!
Categories: Learning · Schools Tags: enrichment · Laurel Creek Nature Centre · Outdoor and Environmental Education (OEE) · Outdoor Ed Centre · Parkway Public School
