Year 4 - Budding Botanists

A day of exploration, a day of investigation and ultimately a day of discovery. This is how our Year 4 pupils spent their day at Kew Gardens whilst following in the mammoth footsteps of Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish Botanist.

Linnaeus is famous for creating a system of naming plants and animals, known as the binomial system (1732-35). The system identifies all species of plants and animals, giving each a genus name followed by a specific name (species), both names being in Latin. Luckily for our pupils, they didn't have to examine the entirety of the system like Linnaeus, but just a small sample of unique plants.

Hence, armed with clipboards, pencils and sturdy shoes, our intrepid year 4s set out on their plant hunt. Using maps they had to discover the plant location, name and category. We are glad to say during their pursuit they didn't come across Titan Arum, otherwise known as the 'corpse flower', which in full bloom that day would have been emanating a rather unpleasant odour - definitely one plant worth avoiding!

In addition to the planned hunt the children were also able to view the magnificent artwork of Marianne North, a Victorian plant hunter and artist. Overall the children had a wonderful day and were fortunate to see the lily pads in full bloom, the floral abundance of the Japanese Garden, which they thoroughly enjoyed and the spectacular architecture of the pagoda, of which they were in total awe.  It was a successful trip which left quite a few of our pupils exhausted - there were a lot sleepy heads on the coach back to school!