March winds and April showers won’t stop nature learning! Our brand new education pack for primary school classrooms is out now to accompany the installation of bird boxes.

Phase one was launched in Kinloch Rannoch with Tom Rawson of GreenTweed Eco © Ian Biggs

Step one of our Highland Perthshire Primary Schools Birdbox Project was a grand success when we launched GreenTweed Eco’s hand-made bird houses at Kinloch Rannoch Primary School in February.

Now is a crucial time for the birdboxes to be installed, just as birds come to visit Perthshire to nest. The fun doesn’t stop there, though, the Perth and Kinross Countryside Trust (PKCT) has developed an education pack to help primary school children learn how to monitor and care for the bird habitats.

The pack has practical learning points to enhance the pupils' direction action in improving local biodiversity, as well as lots of information about birds all over Scotland – common and rare ones!

Building on PKCT’s education work, the resources can be found available on the education resources section of our website, along with other fun print-out materials.

The activity course and activity sheets on OpenLearn Create

Hosted by OpenLearn Create, the pack includes an interactive ‘activity course’ for primary school teachers to display on smartboards or projectors with tons of supplementary activity sheets, games, and arts-and-craft prompts.

This ‘off-the-shelf’ education pack is completely free to use and includes a quick start guide and suggested session plans to help teachers get started. With an estimated four hours of content, children will gain a greater understanding of their impacts on their local environments and learn about the most common birds they will see in their gardens, school playgrounds and in town. The pack will especially appeal to those in Highland Perthshire, but it remains well-suited for young nature enthusiasts further afield too.

Learn about 27 different Scottish birds, all the sounds they make, where they live, what they eat, when they visit and how to care for them!

This project has been possible thanks to the funding by the Basil Death Trust, Jimmie Cairncross Charitable Trust and PKCT. If you would like to know more about our education opportunities and resources, be sure to check out the education page on our website regularly for new content and reach out to us for future events.