Plants are essential to everyone's lives. Welcome to Plantlife.
Bee Scene! New national children’s survey of wild flowers launches this spring
Plantlife and the Bumblebee Conservation Trust are asking children to ‘Bee Scene’ in 2010 by taking part in a new survey designed especially for them.
March 20 2010
Primary school groups, youth groups or families can visit a local park, field or other natural space to complete a simple wild flower survey. Children across England can link their findings online by creating a virtual flower meadow.
The Bee Scene survey is simple and quick to complete and provides an easy way for children to become citizen scientists and contribute to monitoring the natural environment by spotting different types of wild flowers such as dandelions, red clover, thistles or campion.
The survey should be carried out between April and July. Recording the numbers of wild flowers and the different types present will help Plantlife and the Bumblebee Conservation Trust know whether local bees have enough sources of pollen for them to thrive.
Bumblebees are vital for the health of our countryside, as many of our most colourful wild flowers and our food plants are pollinated by them, and some rely entirely on bees.
The survey is supported by an education pack for teachers and educators with extra activities so they can lead a Bee Scene expedition in their local green space. The survey can be done in an hour or with the education pack could form a fieldwork or activity day or basis of a topic for investigation.
The survey and activity pack are available online at http://wildaboutplants.org.uk/. Once groups have completed the survey, schools are asked to feedback their survey results online where their results will help plant a virtual meadow across England.