Students in class 10/47 took a short trip to Ballymoyer to investigate the simple changes a school can make their local environment to enhance biodiversity – creating a friendly place for all manner of creatures.

Principal, Mr Kennedy welcomed the St Paul’s students and staff to their lovely country school, with some welcome refreshments in the school dinner hall.

The P7 students then joined the group and kindly acted as guides to the St Paul’s students as they moved around their many eco-friendly attractions.

First stop was the bug hotel, which was of great interest to 10/47 as they are constructing a bug hotel in the grounds of St Paul’s in the next few weeks.

They were able to get their hands dirty and view some of the creatures who are in residence in the bug hotel, including millipedes, beetles, slugs and worms.

There were no spiders around today, much to the relief of some of the girls.

After the bug hotel, the P7s demonstrated some pond dipping and gave the St Paul’s students an opportunity to see some frog spawn, tadpoles and water skitters.

They told us how the pond has become a very important part of their school and how they enjoy seeing the pond in different seasons.

Of course our students were eager to have a go themselves and they got stuck in rightly.

From this we ventured across the river to investigate the plant and animal life of the river bed and the students even had a go at river dipping.

We then saw how a pond can become over grown with vegetation and how the different habitats suit different animals.

Mr Kennedy finished the visit with the school’s vegetable patch and the P7s were keen to tell us about the delicious potatoes they harvested this year.

The Year 10 group thoroughly enjoyed their visit and it definitely gave us all food for thought.

We would like to thank Mr Kennedy and everyone in Ballymoyer who made us all so welcome on our visit.

Below are some images from the students trip to Ballymoyer.