Calderstones’ eco school is a large comprehensive school in Liverpool with over 1540 pupils. The school first took part in The Big Sunflower Project in 2014 and since then have been enthusiastic participants taking photos and posting these on Twitter to raise awareness of centronuclear and myotubular myopathy and even getting the project a mention in Educate magazine which goes out to all schools across the Merseyside region and is distributed at many outlets for parents and students to access. Emma, a teacher at the schools says:
I found out about The Big Sunflower Project on Twitter in 2014 and it was a complete no-brainer that our school got involved. We have a team of young Eco Leaders at Calderstones who work on the allotment for extra-curricular enrichment. And, along with our key stage three pupils (who get to take part in Green Corner lessons as part of our PSHE Scheme of Work) all got to be involved in sowing, growing and nurturing the flowers and produce at the allotment. One of our youngest and keenest Eco Leaders, Cameron, had an opportunity to further contribute to the project by writing a little blog which was featured on the Project Dirt website – a proud moment for Cameron.
Our school allotment has been a fantastic way of getting our pupils to learn outdoors over the last couple of years and the growing of the sunflowers has provided a real highlight in the summer term.
We challenged ourselves to grow 100 sunflowers and show their progress via photographs on Twitter, Project Dirt and our school website. Pupils have enjoyed experimenting with different varieties of sunflower and monitoring their growth patterns and our sunflowers are still blossoming.
Staff got involved by growing their own blooms at home and alongside students at the Green Corner. Some form classes got to recycle tin cans, turn them into planters, and grew sunflowers in them for their desks.
* Calderstones’ Eco school website
* Cameron’s blog
The Big Sunflower Project 