Workshops
A huge component of SPEC's involvement in the QE School Garden are the class room workshops, led by Catriona Gordon.
Recently Catriona led a Grade 1 class in an Insect Workshop.
The group discussed insect morphology (and later that week made up a song about insect body parts!), behaviour and identification, before being told they were going to go outside and be real bug scientists.
Heading out to the school grounds armed with pooters (bug catchers), magnifiers, and petri-dishes to collect bugs, they dived into the bushes and soon we heard ‘Look a green spider’, ‘cool an earwig’, ‘I think I swallowed a fly’ and ‘ahh, do we have to go back inside, this is fun’.
Bug hunting was followed by a close up look at some live stick-bugs, mealy worms, QE’s butterfly collection and the favorite, a giant cockroach. The kids drew the bugs, labeled their body parts, and took away a new understanding and appreciation of the insect world and of real life science.
Recently Catriona led a Grade 1 class in an Insect Workshop.
The group discussed insect morphology (and later that week made up a song about insect body parts!), behaviour and identification, before being told they were going to go outside and be real bug scientists.
Heading out to the school grounds armed with pooters (bug catchers), magnifiers, and petri-dishes to collect bugs, they dived into the bushes and soon we heard ‘Look a green spider’, ‘cool an earwig’, ‘I think I swallowed a fly’ and ‘ahh, do we have to go back inside, this is fun’. 
Bug hunting was followed by a close up look at some live stick-bugs, mealy worms, QE’s butterfly collection and the favorite, a giant cockroach. The kids drew the bugs, labeled their body parts, and took away a new understanding and appreciation of the insect world and of real life science. 