Wild City 2024 Students Join Celebration Days

The Salters’ Institute and Edible Landscapes London welcomed back the Year 5 students participating in Wild City 2024 for their Celebration Days. These days concluded most of the students’ Wild City journey by celebrating the completion of designing their green spaces and sum up their learning about biodiversity over the previous four months. Our Outreach Ambassador Kalea shares her experience of the Celebration Days:

You might think being involved in Celebration Days for the third year running means you’ve seen it all, but I’ve found the experience different every time. Each session is a whirlwind succession of activities where the students cover important aspects of biodiversity. My personal highlights are the quiz and the garden design showcase.

A student creates a seed ball, one of the activities during the Wild City Celebration Days.

I love the atmosphere of a quiz. Who doesn’t? The students join in classic multiple-choice, multi-round quiz followed by a buzzer round where each team must come up with their own sound. You can feel the quiet tension in the air, right up until the last word of the question is uttered testing the biodiversity knowledge the students gained over the past few months. A burst of animal noises erupts through the room as the students try to answer. The quizmaster had a hard time figuring out who ‘buzzed’ first, which just goes to show how eager and engaged every team is. Any quiz worth its salt always throws up twists and turns, and this one does too! Many of the questions aren’t easy, and some have been eye-opening for everyone – who knew that kiwi was a climbing plant? You really get the sense that the things the students learn are new and exciting and will stick with them for a long time.

With the garden design, each school has its opportunities and challenges with its available space, and of course a unique classroom-full of fresh eyes and bold imaginations behind them. The result is always truly one-of-a-kind: From designs plotted out neatly in grids to those that literally pop off the page; from arches to water features to sensory zones; from the most exotic of plants to the ever lovely dandelions and daisies. It blows my mind every time how creative, special, and fundamentally student-led each design is. With my memories of primary school being cement and plastic grass, I am always so pleased for the winning school because I know the massive difference it must make for those students and the ones who come after them.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed being part of the Wild City Celebration Days, and hope Wild City continues for a long time to come!

Morningside Primary School in Hackney, London will have their green space design brought to life by Edible Landscapes London over the next few weeks and our five other participating schools will receive £300 to continue their biodiversity journey.

Now in its third year, Wild City is a free science-based project that brings biodiversity to life for Year 5 students in London. This five-month project will see students work with experts, the Salters’ Institute, and Edible Landscapes London to explore the importance of biodiversity and green spaces in their lives and local communities.

For questions regarding the Wild City project, please contact the Public Programmes Manager at [email protected].

Read our earlier news about Wild City 2024 here:

Wild City 2024 Launches at Salters’ Hall

Wild City 2024 Participants Announced

Wild City 2024 Students Begin Designing Their Green Spaces

Photos: Eva Palazuelos