An Eco Week

Using the SEM

Hey Blog! Eco week this week.

Yesterday I went to the National Stone Centre with the Belper Home Ed Eco Group. We were looking at items under a SEM (scanning electron microscope). It was a “Bring your own items and we’ll look at them” session. I took a dead dragonfly, which we broke up and put on mini microscope slides. These were tiny studs, which looked like cuff-links, and had double-sided tape on the top. It was SOOO cool! You could even see the hexagons which make up its eyes! I also brought a piece of slow worm skin and under the microscope you could see the different scales, like plates, which caught the light in different ways. It was amazing!

Preparing the slide with the dragonfly head

Today (also with the Belper Home Ed Eco Group) I went to a workshop at the Derbyshire Eco Centre. We learnt about why and how it was built. We also played habitat loss games and I planted a sweet chestnut that I hope will grow into a tree.

The other thing I want to talk about is Earth School. Earth School (Earth School 2020 on TEDEd) is “30 Quests for students around the world to celebrate, explore and connect with nature”.  Today I finished the 30th Quest. I thoroughly recommend them! After completing the video, there are “Dig deeper” and “Discuss” sections for people to explore. The quests really help you to understand why we need to make choices to help the planet.