Trinity Primary: Environment Detectives - Introduction

Trinity Primary School is in the north-east of Edinburgh and has a wide and culturally diverse catchment area. The school roll is around 320 pupils. There is a designated Science Room, where 5-14 science is taught as a discrete subject.

Education for citizenship is an intrinsic part of the curriculum. The children are aware of their responsibilities as pupils of Trinity Primary and take pride in their environment. There is a pupil council forum where the elected P7 representatives liaise with the headteacher to voice the questions, requests and opinions of their peers. The children are aware of their place in the wider community, often sharing their extra-curricular experiences and events with the school. There is an active and supportive parent staff association (PSA), enhancing home-school relationships.

Project aims

The Royal Society in London invited the P7 pupils in the school to apply for a grant to carry out a science or engineering project of their own design. Ideas and implementation would be the children’s own. The children decided to keep it topical and local so that information and investigations would be accessible. One of the pupils suggested looking at the extensive building work being carried out on reclaimed land at Newhaven Harbour, a short distance from the school. This was in keeping with the school working towards its Eco School bronze award, with the environment and how it can be protected being very much in the children’s minds.

Kirsty Martin, a class teacher with responsibility for science, steered the project, co-ordinating trips to the construction site and collating data. The project, while rooted within the science curriculum, developed a range of cross-curricular outcomes:

• maths (gathering data to display in graph form)
• language (the actual written work in the final report)
• citizenship (skills and competences for active participation).

Links were established with the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH), which assigned Mark Theobald as the science liaison person for the school. He provided assistance with data collection and useful websites, through email and school visits.

The project was supported by school staff, in particular the management team and support staff, and parents provided practical assistance for site visits.