Environmental group hoping to pollinate new interest in wildlife

Thursday 13 May 2021

An education initiative has been launched by the Pollinator Project to encourage children to learn more about some of the Bailiwick’s pollinators.

This summer term, the Pollinator Project team will give every Bailiwick primary school the chance to have talks, interactive tasks and solitary bee identification packs including classroom posters.

A ‘Create A Guernsey Solitary Bee’ pop-out activity sheet accompanies the packs and is a creative competition open to all local primary school age children. 

Pictured: Parents of home-schooled children can contact the Pollinator Project on social media. 

Every child submitting their bee art will be given a packet of seeds to sow their own ‘pollinator-friendly flower mix’ in their garden or planter at home.

There are six prizes up for grabs worth more than £1,000, including vouchers for GROW Ltd so that schools can create or expand their own pollinator patch. Three individual prizes of £50 are also available for the best bee artwork. 

Pollinator Project’s Co-Founder Barry Wells explained: “As our pollinator education campaign for the last two years on bumblebees (2019) and butterflies (2020) was much-loved and so successful, we decided this year’s focus should be solitary bees.

“It’s not well known that there are over 90 fascinating species of bees in Guernsey – and most are solitary bees, which can have very different habitats and breeding cycles to the other pollinators.”

Pictured: Children are being invited to find out more about some of the species that make our eco-system tick. 

Pollinator Project Coordinator Bridget Spinney is hopeful that educating children about the solitary bee species in Guernsey will help them connect more with nature. 

“By providing learning packs about why we need pollinators, and the importance of conservation, we hope to engage children and their families in how we can help our populations of solitary bee,” she said.

“Our collective efforts create positive change so getting children interested in pollinating insects is one key step towards a healthy ecosystem in our islands.”

The Pollinator Project is also offering schools and community groups the chance to learn about how they can help conservation of pollinators. Respected local bee, butterfly and moth experts Barry Wells and Andy Smith will also be giving a range of talks this summer.