Awards for young citizen scientists

28 November 2019

Young people from schools and community groups across the North Pennines and beyond have achieved John Muir Discovery Awards through our Cold-blooded and Spineless project. The project celebrated invertebrates and encouraged people to record their invertebrate sightings. 58 children and teenagers received the award, which encourages people to connect with, enjoy and care for wild places.

Through the project, the young people from the North Pennines and the Newcastle area learned about invertebrates through practical ID sessions, creative arts and habitat creation.

In 2017, 20 Allendale Primary school pupils took part in Cold-blooded and Spineless education sessions. They focused on discovering invertebrates in the North Pennines and taking responsibility for the habitats they visited. They recorded the invertebrates they found and shared their data with national record centres. They also built a bug hotel in the school grounds.

A film was made about the activities involving the children and this was shown in an open-air cinema at a local festival attended by over 100 members of the community. The children created animations about invertebrates and their habitats which were also shown at the event.

Here are some of the children’s comments after taking part:

‘Outdoor learning is really fun because I like going outside and being adventurous and I like learning about invertebrates and going pond dipping.’

‘We learned that some bugs live in trees and others in poo, streams, meadows and woodlands.’

‘We went on a bug hunt in a meadow.’

“I like the eco garden because there’s loads of bugs.’

‘Amazing how many (invertebrates) were such great predators.’

‘I think that stream dipping taught me a lot because I didn’t know that many creatures lived in the creases of the stream.’

‘We learned that cuckoo spit actually comes out of the gluteus maximus and how bees are invertebrates.’

The John Muir Award has been a great way to demonstrate the outcomes from children’s involvement with the Cold-blooded and Spineless project, sharing what they have learned and recognising their achievements in celebrating and conserving invertebrates in the North Pennines.