Clackmannanshire Schools Support Services

All Aboard the Eco Bus

The initial idea for our garden came from one of our S1 pupils. This pupil is very interested in buses and enjoys regularly travelling around Clackmannanshire for free with his Young Person’s Travel Card. Lots of our pupils have benefited from the free bus travel initiative, so we decided to celebrate buses for the independence and freedom they give young people as well as the benefits public transport has on the environment.

Tyre bug hotel

Tasty things growing

Tin can planter

After we decided on the theme of the garden. The eco schools class worked together to plan what the garden would look like and be made of. We created a small 3D model to plan the basic structure of our garden design. The feedback we got from our initial design suggested we should include more edible plants in our final design. We decided to make all the plants in our garden edible, that way we could use them in cookery lessons in the future. Pupils grew all the plants in the garden from donated seeds and sowed them in trays on the classroom window sills. Pupils were able to watch the plants change and grow every day.

We put up a poster on our Eco Schools notice board asking for donations of seeds, plastic plant pots, tin cans, car tires, wood off cuts and twine. We received lots of materials from staff and support workers across the school. A local garage donated the old car tires to use in the project. Pupils also collected plastic bottles and tin cans from home. We used leftover wood from technical projects to form the base of the raised bed. Pupils painted other old bits of plywood to make the bus signage and number plate. We have two willow dens on our school grounds which regularly need pruned, so we wanted to make use of it in our garden design. We cut willow and left it to soak in a bucket of water for a few days then we wove it around some posts to form the sides of the vegetable bed.

We created bug hotels inside the tires using sticks and dead leaves also collected from the school grounds. These will give insects and other wildlife a safe place to nest.

Pupils really enjoyed leading this project and coming up with creative solutions for reusing and repurposing materials. Some of the skills we have learned on this project such as the willow weaving we hope to use again in future projects. Once the competition is over the garden will be maintained with pupils continuing to weed and water the plants. We hope to harvest some of our vegetables soon and use them in cookery lessons, then we will plant the bed up with a new crop next year.

Garden Design