Going Wild about Scotland through July

22/08/2016 in RZSS

The sun is out and the schools are off so the Wild about Scotland bus has been visiting various locations educating the public about amazing Scottish wildlife.

The first stop in July was one of our biggest and most exciting events to date. We were invited along to the opening of the new session of the Scottish Parliament. The day included being part of the ‘Riding’ procession down Edinburgh’s Royal Mile with 2,000 other people. Along with meeting some of the MSPs and Presiding Officer Ken MacIntosh, we were also very lucky to meet Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon during our time outside the Scottish Parliament on what was a incredibly fun and historic day for us all at Wild about Scotland.

Another significant moment in Wild about Scotland history happened this month with a change in personnel. Education Officer Lindsay, who had been on the project since our launch in August 2014, has moved on to pastures new and will be sorely missed! Lindsay will be best remembered pretending to be a snail in her favourite game ‘Mini-beast Kung Fu’, a fun game not too dissimilar to ‘Musical Statues’ that she would play with the classes at the end of our Mini-beast session. We have many more schools and venues to visit so we welcome our new Education Officer, Kirsty, who has started and already is hard at work creating and inventing sessions for the new term starting in the middle of August (although I think she is less keen to be face down in the grass pretending to be a gigantic gastropod!). Here is an account of her first couple of weeks as part of the Wild about Scotland team:

July meant a new adventure for me by joining the Wild about Scotland team. My first week involved teaching the RZSS Edinburgh Zoo Summer School children all about the native species we find in Scotland. It was really enjoyable and great to see the children getting so involved. The following week was another Summer School day but this time with the bus!! We taught the children all about beavers and they got the chance to build a beaver dam. The last Saturday of the month saw us at Archerfield Walled Gardens in East Lothian. The sun was shining and we had over 200 visitors to the bus to find out about native species and join in on our activities.  

As the end of the month was drawing in we visited many activity days in Fife, Renfrewshire and East Lothian. We also managed to drop by The Scottish Deer Centre again for their Native Species Day. This was a brilliant weekend celebrating everything fantastic and fun about our very own Scottish animals. We were joined by the likes of Scottish Wildlife Trust, Field Studies Council and TCV, to name but a few, all of which are brilliant organisations working hard to safeguard Scotland’s biodiversity just like us at RZSS.

So that has been the first few weeks of the summer holidays with plenty more to come in August. Keep an eye out for our next blog to find out about mini-beast hunting at Whitmuir Organic Farm and The Big Picnic at the Helix Park in Falkirk.

See you next month,
Jamie and Kirsty
Wild about Scotland Education Officers 

Top Tweets

 

Thanks to everyone who visited the @WildaboutScot bus during their #NightAtTheZoo! Hope you had a great night! pic.twitter.com/LX2tJXRnMR

— Wild about Scotland (@WildaboutScot) June 30, 2016

 

If you're looking for something to do today then come to Muiravonside Country Park @FCTrust for native species fun! pic.twitter.com/9fREDvCopp

— Wild about Scotland (@WildaboutScot) July 7, 2016

 

Top media posts for the WaS Community ticketing scheme 

 

Look forward to visiting @EdinburghZoo with families today. We’ll be going wild about native #biodiversity at #RZSS with #WildaboutScotland!

— Circle (@CircleScot) July 12, 2016

 

Families supported by Circle enjoying @WildaboutScot Garden @EdinburghZoo! native #biodiversity #FeelGoodFriday pic.twitter.com/NaN3BgW7Ni

— Circle (@CircleScot) July 22, 2016