Tophill Low welcomes families back to the reserve

Tophill Low welcomes families back to the reserve

Once the reserve had been open for a week from 20th July the education section of Tophill Low started to welcome back family groups to our family workshops to support home learning. These have been organised so that family groups (maximum 6 people) can get involved with activities within the nature trail area. Each session has consisted of four family groups, each doing a different activity, then rotating around the activities in order to abide by social distance guidelines, yet allowing children to participate in things that they have missed out on during lockdown, as all school visits were cancelled. 

Duncan who works in the treatment plant brought his grandchildren, Bertie and Betsy along. Bertie was even dressed for the part with his Yorkshire Water uniform!

Children and their families have been pond dipping, following the nature trail to spot a range of different and interesting features of the woodland, learning about plants and pollinators along the butterfly border and also hunting out minibeasts in our bug arena. 

Usually when schools visit the class collects valuable data about the health of the invertebrate life in the reception pond, so having family groups doing this will mean at least we have some records for summer 2020. 

Finding out what has been caught

There is always something to spot along the nature trail and the volunteers have done a great job cutting back the vegetation to allow this to happen, making sure that no one misses "Old Stinker"! 

The weather can affect how many butterflies can be spotted along the buddleia hedge but when it's been warm enough families have taken part in the Big Butterfly Count using an app on their phones then adding to this to the nation wide survey of butterflies throughout August. If no butterflies have been around then children have been searching for caterpillars made of wool that have been hidden in the bushes, a nice activity to demonstrate the survival adaptation of camouflage. 

Finally we have given families a real challenge and that has been to search for minibeast, a task that can prove quite difficult in dry conditions but you can always rely on children to hunt them out.

Feedback from those families that have taken part has been really positive and both children and adults, many who had not visited the reserve before, have enjoyed the activities and felt safe taking part with their families. 

Future dates can be found on the main education section of the Yorkshire Water website (click here for link)