A Project of Grundschule am Schaefersee Berlin / Germany http://www.schaefersee-grundschule.de   Our Contribution to the Environment-Contest 2001 - by Thomas Kersten

Project: „Agenda 21" - a Beginning   What about the project „Agenda 21" - a Beginning That project is a voluntary study group for pupils of the Grundschule am Schaefersee in Berlin-Reinickendorf, who want to get involved in environment. It is a project concerning pupils aged 10 to 12 years, their parents and teachers.   What does the project „Agenda 21" - a Beginning want to be? The project wants pupils to know from experience the own school as a concrete element of their personal environment, to urge them to be observers, give them food for thought and guide them to joint actions.   What we have done yet: 1. Action: Stock-taking in the school-garden 2. Action: New life in dead wood - laying out a Benjes-hedge 3. Action: All trash or what? - What about recycling? 4. Action: New housing for insects 5. Action: Daytime-accomodations for bumblebees etc. 6. Action: Good nurseries are rare - Construction of nesting boxes   1. Action : Stock-taking in the school-garden There are four distinguishing marks in our school-garden: 1. Meadow with fruit trees / Meadow with grass 2. Wild flowers and a copse corner 3. Kitchen garden and 4. Range of trees.   Garden views   Wild flowers and a copse corner Kitchen garden   Meadow with fruit trees 2. Action : New life in dead wood - laying out a Benjes-hedge 2. Action : New life in dead wood - laying out a Benjes-hedge The Benjes-hedge, formerly constructed by the brothers Benjes, serves as a hiding place for small mammals. It is built from dead wood. Even one week after finishing the Benjes-hedge we found fresh excrements of a hedgehog, who was interested in the new refuge.   3. Action : All garbage or what? - What about recycling? The inspection of the rubbish bin told us, to make higher efforts in separating the garbage Here you can see, how the garbage could be separated. From the left to the right: plastics - film - paper - organic material - aluminium - garbage - cloth - glass - an old vacuum cleaner. By well separating these materials we could save money and take care for our environment.    4. Action : New housing for insects On our discovery tour through the school-garden we found this bush littered with greenflies. Earwigs are their natural enemies. So we constructed some fine housings built from old pottery.   This is a nest on the ground made for bumblebees. A pupil describes it: "In a bush we digged a hole, deep enough to fit a pot. Then we filled some pebbles, wooden chips an hay into the hole and put the pot over it." As protection against rain etc. we put a piece of wood over the pot. From a slice of wood we made a so called "Trappnest"; in the "Trappnest" insects (bees etc.) can brood. One pupil said: "We sawed a trunk into two parts. We drilled holes into it." That was very difficult, because we used very hard wood. But meanwhile it is ready.    5. and 6. Actions: Daytime-accomodations for bumblebees etc. and Good nurseries are rare - Construction of nesting boxes This old nesting box we found. It was filled out with a wasp's nest and not useful as a bird's nest.   Old nesting box with a wasps' nest We decided to build new nesting boxes for several sorts of birds.   At the beginning we made a plan.... ...and here our nesting houses are almost ready. From the left to the right: nesting house for tits, a halfhole and a nesting house for bats (In the surrounding of our school building still live bats) Now we are ready and of course we will hang up our nesting houses on the trees in the school garden.