Local primary schools have recently taken part in a project educating children about the importance of our peatlands and the latest school to take part was Riddlesden St. Mary’s.
The children were invited to take part in the Pledges to the Landscape project, a classroom programme using art and mark making to engage children, which has been designed by arts charity, Keighley Creative, working alongside the Yorkshire Peat Partnership and the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust.
The project is designed to help children to get creative and to help educate them about the environment around them and particularly the importance of Yorkshire’s peat bogs, their plants and wildlife.
Each class was gifted their own “bog in a box” kit containing high quality drawing materials and hand-lenses to help the children observe and document the growth of their own micro-bog.
The workshops have been designed and delivered by local artist, Naseem Darbey, who visited numerous local schools and helped them create their own classroom “bog”. She encouraged the pupils to be inspired by the plants that grow in the bog and to use their drawing skills to record what they had learnt.
The children were given challenges to help them connect with the bog and to improve their drawing techniques using mark-making, to help them get to know the drawing materials and using touch drawing to develop their senses and record texture.
As Naseem explained: “We challenged the pupils to try new ways of drawing. For example, we encouraged them to draw without looking at the paper, which is tricky but it’s brilliant for developing hand-eye co-ordination. We also got them to draw with their other hand to take the preciousness and worry of a perfect drawing away, and to try drawing using a continuous line taking their drawing materials for a fast, spontaneous walk across the paper!”
The children all made their own ‘Pledges to the Landscape’, working together to explore, champion and protect our important doorstep superhero wetlands!
Spokesperson from the Yorkshire Peat Partnership, Lucy Lee, said: “Although the word “bog” may sound ugly, these unique landscapes and their plants can be truly beautiful and are critical to the preservation of our natural environment. It’s important that we all learn about how important they are and we are keen to get children involved from as young an age as possible.”
Naseem said: “The children that have been involved in the project loved getting dirty and engaging directly with a bog in the comfort of their classroom. From there we taught them about the importance of the landscapes around them and how their preservation is essential. We looked at the past, present and future of these environments in order to help the children understand how they work. They documented the peatbogs using drawing materials and created some beautiful art in the process.”
Laura Woodcock, a Year 5 teacher at the school said: “It has been a truly inspirational experience. We absolutely adored it!”
The sessions are also being run at other primary schools around Keighley such as Worth Valley, Merlin Top, Eastwood, Holycroft and Victoria.
Other Keighley families also will be given the opportunity to join in with similar drawing activities as well as story writing, clay modelling and painting at the Pledges to the Landscape celebration event on Saturday 10th August 2024 in Cliffe Castle Park. And everyone is welcome to come and join in the fun and get stuck in, no matter what your age or ability.
For more information on your local peatlands, please contact the Yorkshire Peat Partnership. For more information on arts and crafts workshop offerings from Keighley Creative, please email admin@keighleycreative.org
