Froglife

Leaping forward for reptiles and amphibians

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Green Pathways

Vote Froglife!

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We are delighted to announce that we have been shortlisted in the Octavia Hill Awards 2014 ‘Wild Organisation’ category. It is now down to a public vote to decide the winner. Please show your support for our work with young people by voting here.

The Octavia Hill Awards are organised by the National Trust, the Wild Network and BBC Countryfile Magazine and celebrate people who work to protect and enhance green spaces for wildlife and local communities.

“This year, the Octavia Hill Awards are looking for heroes who have helped children and young adults connect with the outdoors and wildlife – passing on their own experience, enthusiasm and love of nature. We want to celebrate the people who have made a real difference to the youngsters around them – helping to inspire a life-long love of the outdoors and wildlife.

The Wild Organisation award is for a group or organisation, large or small, that have championed the importance of reconnecting children with nature. Voting closes midday Sunday 31st August.” (taken from the Countryfile website)

Why should you vote for us?
Froglife is a conservation organisation whose work is instrumental to the conservation and protection of native amphibians and reptiles. Over its time, the organisation has initiated a whole host of regional and national projects and has been highly successful in its attempts to reconnect children with nature. Most notably, through its Green Pathway project, funded by the BBC Children in Need, Froglife provides young disadvantaged people with opportunities that inspire and empower them to partake in positive wildlife orientated activities. Their work “clearly demonstrates that it is championing the importance of reconnecting children with nature, and moreover they are focusing on those children and young people that wouldn’t normally access these opportunities because of social, cultural or financial barriers”, says a nominator.

For more information about our Learning Projects please click here

We need your vote so please show your support by voting here

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Inspired by Nature: Skeltonic Verse

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frog with earphones

 

Inspired by Nature is a new themed Croak to entertain you with some of my own and my favourite famous poems written about nature and the outdoors. I hope it will stimulate you to get creative with words and write something yourself. If you do and would like to share them with us, please post them on our Facebook page.

Becca (Conservation Youth Worker: Green Pathways Project).

 

Skeltonic verse, also known as tumbling verse, is a fun form for a poem named after the poet John Skelton (1460-1529).

Here are the rules:
• Each line should be 3 -6 words long
• The last word of the line should rhyme
• Continue with the same rhyme until it runs out of impact
• Make the poem fun and energetic

Here is one I wrote about my job using the word “green”. I have italicised where the emphasis goes to help me read it aloud. I deliberately chose to not rhyme the last line in order to emphasis its importance; after all, rules are made to be broken!

My project is called Green Pathways and it works with vulnerable and disadvantaged teenagers. I take them outdoors and do projects and activities linked to wildlife and conservation. You could call it outdoor therapy. I wrote the poem to highlight that we create our young people and we all are responsible for how they turn out.
Why not write your own skeltonic poem about the outdoors and share it on our Facebook page.

TIP: You can choose a word and then use a rhyming dictionary to help find its friends.

My Job; in Green Skeltonic Verse
Outside in the green
With the alien teens
Who sometimes are obscene
Or just high on caffeine

Worked like a machine
Made to use a latrine
They love to make scenes
Could teach drama to queens

Cook them outdoor cuisine
Bonfired ‘tatoes and beans
So I can intervene
To keep their noses clean

Of their lives I can glean
That their family’s not keen,
Slaves to the drinks machine
Or their budget is mean

Give them trust, space, routine
Make them slap on sunscreen
P’haps off drugs they’ll wean
Stop acting Wolverine

These victims are between
The sky and sub-marine
Often they are unseen

In amongst what’s been created.

Inspired by Nature: Nonsense Poems

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Inspired by Nature is a themed Croak to entertain you with some of my own and my favourite famous poems written about nature and the outdoors. I hope it will stimulate you to get creative with words and write something yourself. If you do and would like to share them with us, please post them on our facebook page.

Becca, Conservation Youth Worker: Green Pathways Project

 

Nonsense Poems

You’d think these would be easy, but it is more difficult than you might imagine to write utter nonsense.
You all know a nonsense poem; Edward Lear’s The Owl and the Pussy Cat or even the nursery rhyme Hey Diddle Diddle. These are rhyming verse written for children which often use made-up words or are utterly meaningless. It’s a good way to have fun with language that even young children can take part in.
If you have never read Dr Seuss, then please do, no matter how old you are. He is the master of nonsense. It’s not technically nonsense, but his book The Lorax is a brilliant fable on the impact of greed and overexploitation on the environment. I love it.

Write a piece of nonsense and post it on our facebook page!

My Desk: Nonsense but to me
“Lets twist!” said the cheese with a sparkly sneeze,
To the naked clay froad in the road.
“Stop” stared the hawk whilst the starling went “squawk”
And the card underneath was bowed
By a box of hoppers on top of the loppers,
Near to the soft roll of bed,
The abandoned chair and the children of Claire
And the handsome lieutenant I’d wed.

Work experience at Froglife

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If you have been watching Froglife through Facebook or Twitter you would have seen my news on work experience. My name is Tom and I have been into all creatures, big and small for as long as I can remember. When I got this placement for work experience, I was thrilled because this is the area of expertise I have wanted to go into for a long time. Getting to know all the people here at Froglife, learn from them and see how much enthusiasm they have for their job is very inspiring. The best thing about this experience was the variety of all the different activities I took part in.

On Monday, I had my induction, where I met everybody and learned about what they do. Then I went out to the Olive Branch community gardens to make baked potatoes on a bonfire and find frogs with students from Thomas Deacon School.

Tuesday, I surveyed a recently built pond for invertebrate life and then went on a snake hunt at Hampton.

graffiti stencilWednesday involved spray-painting practice for a mural at Olive Branch then strawberry picking with another boy at the Green Backyard.

Thursday was the best day of the week, as I went on a Butterfly survey. The weather was against us but we still managed to find a lot of butterflies. Then we went out for another snake hunt (my colleagues were determined that I would see an adder before I go back to school).

Friday I went to Kings Dyke in Whittlesey with a young man to see the signets and walk on the nature trail.

After a weekend to refresh myself, I came back to a busy day on Monday. In the morning I was roasting marshmallows and catching frogs at the Olive Branch community garden with a boy from Heltwate school. Then it was to Green backyard for afternoon of pizza making with the Thomas Deacon group. Finally, I was catching frogs again and picking vegetables with a girl.

Tuesday I was making a bird box in the workshop with a young offender and the finished product looked good.

Wednesday, a day off! This gave me time to catch up and break up the 5 day working week.

Me holding slow wormThursday, out on the butterfly survey again. This time the weather was really good so we saw literately hundreds of butterflies! Then we were out for a snake hunt again and I finally saw my first adder, at last! And there were two of them, both hiding under the same mat, what a cool thing to see.

Friday, my last day in the office. I’m sad to know I am going. I am spending the whole day in the office, wrapping things up and learning about people’s jobs. As celebration of the whole work experience we went out for a pub lunch.

Tomorrow, I will be helping out at Nene Park Academy for a family event which will involve pond dipping, hook the frog and lots of information.

I have enjoyed these two weeks so much and I hope to continue this connection with Froglife. My favourite parts of the experience was the butterfly surveys, because I like all the practical stuff rather than sitting in the office.

As a little side project, I have been studying some labyrinth spiders (agelena labyrinthica) that I have collected from Hampton reserve. I am comparing this species to the house spiders (Tegenaria Duellica) because they are both in the same family (agelenidae). This includes looking at behavioural differences, webbing, reproduction etc. This is one of the multiple projects that I have done with spiders and not the last!

I look forward to continuing my work with Froglife and do more volunteering work to broaden my skills, knowledge and experience. I cannot thank Froglife enough for this opportunity they have given me.

Froglife help Children in Need

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The annual BBC Children in Need fundraising day is upon us. What have you done to raise funds?

It’s easy to think that the young people supported by this fantastic charity are in other, more desperate, places in the UK, but there are vulnerable and disadvantaged young people living on your street, they’re in your city and are being supported by a project that works in your neighbourhood.

Pat yourself on the back! One of the projects that the BBC Children in Need money that you raised pays for is Froglife’s Green Pathways project in Peterborough. We work with teenagers whose lives are made more difficult by, for example, disability, deprivation, drink and drugs abuse or learning difficulties. It also supports the City’s most vulnerable young people who have fallen onto a road that leads to unemployment, antisocial behaviour and crime, guiding them in a more positive direction.

Green Pathways works on practical, outdoor, conservation-linked activities and projects in community gardens, local nature reserves and parks across Peterborough. We deliver outdoor therapy to hundreds of young people improving confidence, social skills and behaviour along the way, as well as increasing their knowledge and enjoyment of the outdoors and providing them with new transferable skills.

Froglife’s Conservation Youth Worker Rebecca Neal, the project officer for Green Pathways says: “I am so lucky to be part of this work. Being outdoors has such a therapeutic effect on people; it’s great to see how well young people respond.”

A current group who have been engaged in Green Pathways since the start of term, come from NeneGate School; a special school for young people with behavioural, emotional and social difficulties. They have held a newt, learned how to manage amphibian habitat with saws and loppers, built dens and climbed trees. Last week they visited Green Backyard to do some wildlife gardening and cook outdoor pizza.
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At the end of a similar project, a lecturer from Peterborough Regional College said “This has been an amazing experience. It was wonderful to work as a group and see the students supporting each other.”

So if you were wondering if it’s really worth putting your hand in your pocket for another charity event. It is. Absolutely and without doubt.

Please support Children in Need today and if you want to be specific with your charity, you can help Green Pathways by volunteering or donating money for ongoing running costs by visiting Froglife.

 

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