What would happen if a complete ring of bark was eaten?

With the wonderful sunshine we have been blessed with this week, Mr Burley seized the opportunity to take his science class outside for part of his lesson to discuss just that! The students were engrossed in Mr Burley’s description of the role xylem cells play in supporting plants survival (here in particular, the tree the students were stood under).

It was great to see Mr Burley bringing learning to life and anchoring the learning to this physical outdoor experience.

Sam, one of the students, said the following:

“I love outdoor learning as you can better understand the physical thing that’s right in front of you, rather than a diagram in a hot classroom! It’s also very beneficial to your memory as you can easily remember teaching in a relevant environment. For example, we were learning about the evolution a tree would have to go through, to be protected from predators. This is why a tree has bark to protect it from aphid invasion.”

Once back in class, the students learnt about how food colouring could be used to show the xylem vessels in celery. Mr Burley set the students the challenge of doing the experiment at home and sharing photo results with the class next lesson.

The snapshot I got to see of this lesson was yet another reminder of the many outstanding lessons delivered in our school.