Basin Notes - February 2001

Spotlight on the Education Service

Over the last few months there have been various changes to our Education Service that we run from the Montrose Basin Wildlife Centre, the most notable of which has been the staffing of the service.

We now employ a teacher/naturalist to assist with groups visiting the centre. Since the start of our new system we have had numerous children through our doors, enjoying nature first hand and experiencing the wonders of the great outdoors.

Since June, over 1000 children have visited the Wildlife Centre. We cater for all ages from nursery groups looking for crabs on the rocky shore to Sixth Year biology students doing sampling of the shrimps, worms and molluscs, which live in the mud.

Primary school groups are by far the most numerous and we try to cater to their needs on various topics, from the favourite mud study to bird identification, migration, food chains and adaptation.

There is of course more to the Basin than just mud and we are hoping to encourage schools to visit the centre throughout the year and cover different topics. We are willing to help schools as much as possible and are more than happy to try new topics which we haven't covered in the past. The site is well suited to cover not only the wildlife side of things but other aspects associated with the site.

Weather and seasons are vitally important to the site and are directly linked to the wildlife here such as the geese in the autumn. Land uses of the reserve, whether it be the farming side or zoning of the site for recreation are topics which could fit into geography based topics and the physical side of geography and the formation of the Basin and the river are also of interest.

If you are interested in finding out more of what the Wildlife Centre Education service can offer school groups and also Brownie, Scouts and Beaver groups please contact the Wildlife Centre on Montrose 676336.