Look Out!

During our first half term, year 5 and 6 students learnt about living things in Science - from the life cycles of different animals to classifying them into different groups. Applying the skills that we learn in school to the wider world is a focus at WPS and our trip to ‘The Look Out’ in Hyde Park was our opportunity to put everything we’d learned about into practice through the exploration of different habitats of the animals that live there!

We kicked off our day by heading out into Hyde park to identify the different habitats that we would be exploring that day. We were fortunate to be able to explore such a variety including meadows, ponds and woodland! The students were kitted up with microscopes and magnifiers to observe their finds and identify features. The used keys to help classify organisms into groups or students may arrange organisms into food chains. They were led by experts who explained minute differences between the different creatures that they found. During the fieldwork students were taught to use appropriate equipment and techniques to locate and collect organisms from different habitats without harming them.

After lunch we donned our microscopes for binoculars and trekked the grounds in search of different birds. We struck gold with ‘bird island’ on the lake where we were able to observe many different species and discuss some of their similarities and differences as well as exploring their different behaviours.

All in all it was a fantastic day and we left The look out with 16 beaming faces. Ella in Year 5 said “It was really cool to fish the lake for different creatures” and Willaim said “Using the binoculars to bird watch was really interesting. I feel like I learnt a lot!”