Floating Garden

Pupils in Years 3-6 took part in the final session of the Floating Garden project on Thursday 26th January. 

They listened to two fascinating stories about travelling across water.
The first story told of the journey through the ages of ice, algae and bio plastics. We listened to a tale from 1850 Victorian times when there was no electricity. People made ice by getting it transported from places like Norway. An Italian man called Carlo Gati wanted to make ice cream, and used to import ice from Norway to Lime house via Regents Canal. He then began to use a giant ice well that is still located at London Canal Museum.
The second story looked at the genius ways nature works.

This water story tells of how the Sahara and Amazon have been tightly linked for over 7000 years. The Sahara which was the land of huge lakes and home to algae diatoms which form the base of the food chain, left depressions by dead algae on the lake bed floor. Dust blowing across the Atlantic to the Amazon with rising vapours of water including all the algae minerals in the dust, has become a natural fertiliser for the Amazon. The  dust that travels thousands of miles from the Sahara to this day, continues to feed the Amazonian rainforest.

The children's activity was to make bio plastic sun catchers. Bio plastics are safe for the environment and able to be broken down as they are made from plants.  The bio plastics the children made were from agar agar, a powder seaweed derivative.
The solution was made from agar powder mixed in glycerin and water and then poured into a dish decorated with flower petals and leaves.

The session ended with a free fall writing piece with the sentence starter 'Dear Algae, today you taught me.....'
Thank you to Laura from the Global Generation for such a wonderful experience.