Nurturing nature

At the weekend members of Year 7 celebrated “Earth Day” by participating in a litter pick and picnic event at Prestwood Nature reserve. Arranged in conjunction with the Chiltern Society, as well as collecting litter the girls also spent time counting cowslips and spotting birds.

At Pipers we encourage all our students to think about the environment in which they live and the ways in which they can make our world a better place. In Year 7 we run a programme called “Enterprise Eagles” and one section, entitled “Nurture Nature” aims to encourage the girls to think about sustainability and the fact that we share the planet with other living things.

To complete the Nurture Nature section of the programme the girls are required to show evidence of the following three aspects:

• Valuing your environment
• Understanding the impact of your actions
• Acting with sustainability in mind

In order to assist the girls with this, Mrs Collins, Head of Year 7 organised a “picnic and litter pick” event at Prestwood Nature Reserve to support the work of The Chiltern Society, a voluntary organisation dedicated to conserving, celebrating and caring for all of the Chilterns’ unique landscape.

At the event girls and their families, under the supervision of members of school staff along with the Chiltern Society Site Manager, spent a couple of hours collect items of rubbish that had been left in the reserve. At the request of the Society the girls also counted Cowslips, which are an important plant on the site, as well as counting birds.

It was a hugely enjoyable afternoon of activity allowing the girls and their families to have fun and work together and help to improve their local area.