This week we’ve got the fourth challenge from our Six Summer Challenges booklet, the litter pick, as well as a Use Less Plastic challenge for you to have a go at. The Wildlife Fact file in this set of resources is all about the Lamprey, an eel-shaped creature with a sucker disc-like mouth and sharp teeth.
We have introduced these online learning opportunities in response to Covid-19, which has prevented us from going into schools in the Ribble Catchment as we normally would. This is our way of bringing our educational topics to you at home so you can continue to learn all about rivers and wildlife.
Activities
The fourth challenge in our Six Summer Challenges is the litter pick!
During your next walk by the river, why not try to pick up some litter from the floor and put it in a bin? Litter is a big problem along rivers, with people leaving rubbish such as plastic bottles, empty crisp packets, ice cream wrappers as so on. All of this rubbish ends up in the river and eventually finds its way to the ocean. This is a huge problem for all of the wildlife that relies on any water habitats, from trout in the River Ribble to sea turtles off the coast of Costa Rica. By disposing of litter properly, you can help stop it from getting into our waterways and having damaging effects on the environment.
If you are going to collect litter on your next walk, make sure that you have an adult with you and only pick up the things you can see have no sharp edges. For your own litter pick, you will need:
- Gloves
- A bag to collect litter in
- A litter picker if you have one
Download the full Six Summer Challenges booklet by clicking on the cover page below:
First created in 1907, plastic has had many uses over the last hundred years and made life so much easier for lots of people. This “material of a thousand uses” seemed to provide endless opportunities. However, in the 1960s, plastic debris was first found in the ocean, raising concerns over the dangers of this material. Plastic recycling was introduced in the 1980s but this scheme is far from perfect, with most plastics still finding their way to landfills or polluting the environment and harming our wildlife. In more recent years, we have started to realise just how damaging plastic is to our planet; the ‘Attenborough effect’ has caused a significant decrease in the amount of single-use plastic we use as a population. We are moving in the right direction but there is always room to further reduce our plastic use.
We are now challenging you to look at your daily plastic use and then think about how you can cut it down. Start with the first activity sheet (blue) and complete that over one week, then for the next week complete the second activity sheet (green).
If you’d like to share them, please send us photos of you litter picking and using less plastic to [email protected]
Wildlife Fact file
This week’s Wildlife Fact file is about the Lamprey. Read the fact file below or click to open the pdf.
