(Year) Five have fun in the river

On Wednesday we spent a happy day with St Leonard's Primary School Padiham on Pendle Water in Barrowford Park. The year five class came along to carry out some river studies and their excitement hardly waned all day. They calculated the speed of the river and plotted the profile of the riverbed. They now know the name of the watercourse and its route to the sea via the River Calder and the Ribble. They caught all manner of facinating creatures in their dipping nets proving that the river is in a really good state.

The best bit for them - they caught a fish! A bullhead about 8cm long.
The best bit for me - the fish set about eating the other creatures in the white tray and was a perfect example of how important it is to keep the river free from pollution. It helped the children understand that if the water wasn't clean the insects wouldn't be there and so neither would the fish.