Photo opportunities – see below for details
Young explorers are enjoying a fun-packed insight into the amazing environment of the desert this week as part of the Natural History Centre’s summer sessions for children.
In a first for the popular Centre, based at the University of Aberdeen, staff are offering their Extreme Earth sessions at the David Welch Winter Gardens at the city’s Duthie Park.
Organiser Marie Fish, Education Officer at the Natural History Centre, said: “The David Welch Winter Gardens is just the spot for finding out more about deserts.
“As the Zoology Building, where the Natural History Centre is based, is being refurbished it seemed a great opportunity to take our education programme out into the community and stage it at one of the city’s favourite attractions.”
Aberdeen City Council has provided the funding for the project and staff at the Winter Gardens have also been extremely supportive of the venture.
“We are taking along some of our wonderful resources including live animals, together with some of our museum specimens and microscopes. We will be combining these with the fantastic glasshouse collections at the Duthie Park to deliver a fun education programme for all about deserts,” said Marie.
“We will have desert trails in the Arid House, workshops with desert specimens, live animals and a craft table, where our young environmentalists can make their very own desert animal to take home.”
The Extreme Earth Deserts sessions are free and take place between 1.00pm and 4.00pm every day this week until Friday. They run again next week from Monday – Thursday (July 24 –27). The events are aimed at accompanied school aged children but everyone is welcome.
Marie added: “Our Extreme Earth Rainforest sessions over the past two weeks have also been extremely popular. The Winter Gardens are proving a really great place to base the Extreme Earth programmes during the summer holidays.
“And the good news is that people don’t need to book – they can just turn up on the day!”