Natural Heritage the Mourne Mountains Key Stage 1&2 Thematic Units Supporting the Areas of Learning and STEM

Teacher resource Not-on-the-shelf: Natural Heritage The Mourne mountains Key Stage 1&2 Thematic Units Supporting the areas of learning and STEM

1 Contents

Section 1 Going up a Understanding 1. What is a mountain? Mountains around the hill, coming Mountains world. down a 2. Making a Mountain out of a... mountain. 3. Mountains! What are they good for?

Section 2 My home Understanding 1. My home – The Mournes. The Mournes patch. The 2. My home in the Mournes. mighty Mournes 3. Exploring my home.

Section 3 “There’s Understanding 1. The variety of life. Biodiversity. the Biodiversity gold in them 2. The interdependence of things. thar hills” of the Mournes 3. Precious life.

Section 4 Resources

Introduction

Many local children and young people within the Mourne Mountains Landscape Partnership Area are disconnected from the Mountain Landscape that surrounds them. They live in the shadow of them, have to cross or drive round them for school or their social life and yet very few know or understand anything about them. They are a huge element in their lives and yet they are almost unaware of their presence.

Through the delivery of this programme we hope to encourage children to look up at the mountains and be reconnected to this essential element of their life, community and heritage. We hope it will enthuse, encourage and empower them to explore the Mournes, discover their majesty and mystery, do something to conserve them and share their experiences with others.

The first thing to realise when exploring any upland landscape is that it isn’t just a bunch of rocks and Heather– a barrier to get over– or something to pass through on the way to the seaside; this is a living, breathing, moving, shifting, community of flora and fauna that is constantly growing and dying, feeding and decaying. There is order, there is beauty, there are secrets and there is routine– life here ebbs and flows as much as any great tide, there is a cycle to the nature of the mountains.

Teachers and education staff must carry out their own health and safety risk assessment before engaging their pupils in these activities.

“Great things are done when men and mountains meet”– William Blake 2 The World Around Us Key Stage 1&2

This programme contributes to the following Statutory requirements for the World Around Us and supports the following key elements of the theme.

Key Stage Statutory Geography History Science and Requirement Technology

Interdependence  ‘me’ in the world The variety of living things in the world and  how plants and animals how we can take care rely on each other within of them. the natural world  interdependence of people and the environment  the effect of people on the natural environment over time

 interdependence of Key people, plants, animals, and place Stage 1

Place  how place influences Comparisons between The range of materials plant and animal life local area and a used in my area. contrasting place for How animals use  ways in which living example, weather, colour to adapt to their things depend on and transport, landscape adapt to their natural environment. environment features. Aspects of their own  features of the immediate world and immediate world, comparisons between including different places features of town and countryside.  change over time in local places An issue in the local or contrasting  positive and environment, for negative effects of people on places example, litter or speeding cars.

Movement and  how and why Animals that migrate. people and animals Energy Design and make move simple models.

Change over  ways in which change Aspects of change Changes in the local time occurs in the natural that have occurred natural environment world over time in the local including how they area, for example, can affect living positive change and  seasonal change or things. how we have a responsibility to make changes that might an active contribution improve aspects of the local area, such as recycling.

3 Continued...

Key Stage Statutory Geography History Science and Requirement Technology

Interdependence  how they and Some of the ways Ways on which the The relationship others interact in the people affect/ use of natural between animals and world conserve the resources through plants in a habitat. environment both time has affected the how living things rely on The main stages in  locally and globally. local and global each other within the the lifecycles of some environment, for natural world Local habitats, for living things. example, example, woodland,  the effect of people on industrialisation since Plants and plant lake, river, seashore, the natural and built Victorian Times. growth. environment over time protected area or pond.

Place  how place Weather in the local Weather in the local influences the area compared to area compared to Key nature of life places that experience places that experience very different weather very different weather ways in which people, Stage 2  conditions. conditions by setting plants and animals depend on the features up a weather station. and materials in places and how they adapt to their environments

 features of and variations in places, including physical, human, climatic, vegetation and animal life

 change over time in places

 positive and negative effects of natural and human events upon a place over time

Movement and  causes that affect the Design and make Energy movement of people models. and animals

 positive and negative consequences of movement and it’s impact on people, places and interdependence

Change over  ways in which change Travelling to school at The life of a famous How animal and plant time occurs over both short different times of the person, family or behaviour is and long periods of time year and in different building in the past. influenced by in the physical and types of weather. seasonal change. natural world How the world has changed over time. Changes that occur to  the effects of positive everyday substances, and negative changes for example, when globally and how we contribute to some of dissolved in water, or these changes heated and cooled. Changes of state in the water cycle.

Obvious changes that occur in lifecycles.

4 SECTION SECTION

Going up a hill, coming down a mountain. Understanding Mountains

1. What is a mountain? Mountains around the world. 2. Making a Mountain out of a... 3. Mountains! What are they good for?

Section 1 1.What is a mountain? Mountains around the world.

New Words Suggested Learning Intentions and Phrases We are learning to:

 Landscape and  recognise the features of a mountain landscape landform Activities:  Slopes Ask the children to consider their local landscape by using the following questions and  Summit information as prompts:

 Peak We are lucky to live in a beautiful area which lots of people enjoy every year. We see it everyday, and many people visit our mountains to walk or hike, have a picnic or take part  Ridge in mountain sports or just to holiday in caravans and hotels.

 Foothills When you look out from the windows here at school, your house or your car when you are travelling about, what do you notice? Can you describe the mountain landscape?  Range The children may give answers that include:  Tectonic Plates sea/beaches/fields/woods/stone walls/mountains/ steep slopes.

Now get the class, in small groups, to discuss what they already know about mountains. Do they know any individual Useful mountain names, mountain ranges, what the weather is like, Information what animals live in mountains?

 A mountain is a Can they describe mountains? Answers may include: Mountains usually have steep, landform that sloping sides and sharp or slightly rounded ridges and peaks. Mountains can be rocky rises to a summit and barren. Sometimes they are covered in snow because they are so high and cold. over 600m. Some have trees growing on their sides. Some common features of mountains  There are even include: the summit, or the top or highest point of a mountain; slopes, or sides of the mountains on the mountain, a long high edge called a ridge and low gentle hills in front of them called Planet Mars. The foothills. A group or line of mountains is known as a range. Weather features are also tallest is important as the mountain climate is very different. Students may be aware of heavy Olympus Mons at snow and avalanches. Ask the class to research mountains. Collect the information 69,459 feet! about a particular mountain, a range of mountains, and perhaps how they were formed.  National Geographic Take this information and display it on the wall as an introduction to the topic and as a describes reminder as the students move through the programme. mountains as “the wrinkles of Connected Learning Opportunities: age and pimples The World Around Us. Language and Literacy. Encourage the students to find mountain of youth on ranges in Atlases. Ask them to list in what countries the range appears. They could then look at the Earth's crusty culture of the various people who live in or around those mountains, comparing them with their own outer skin.” lives here in the Mournes.

Background Information

Mountains are truly imposing features of our landscape. All across the world they dominate their area and force nature and people to work around them. Because of this, mountains have dominated the human mind and heart too. From Greek myths to the Biblical stories and other major religious narratives, mountains have been central, key features in the way we think about the world and how it functions. Where do mountains come from?

There are five main ways that mountains are created. Folds, Fault–block, Dome, Volcano and Plateau. All are made of earth and rock and all require some shifting and moving in the earth’s crust – the thin, constantly moving, outer layer of our planet. This moving layer is broken into massive chunks like large floating jigsaw pieces that pull -away, or bump into one another. Where the two plates contact one another is called a plate– boundary.

Folded Mountains are generally created when two plates of the earth’s crust collide, forcing their edges to crumple and rise in folds like a rug that has been bunched up. These are the most common type of mountain and include famous names like The Rocky mountains, The Himalayas (Mt. Everest) and The Alps.

Fault-block Mountains are formed when a chunk of earth’s crust is forced to rise up creating sharp block-like mountains along the line of a fault or crack. The other side of the fault usually drops emphasising the sharp line of mountains E.g. Sierra Nevada

Dome Mountains are usually a series of single mountains created as magma (liquid rock) pushes up from inside the earth forcing the crust to bulge upwards like a ball. This is called a batholith (from bathos (deep) and lith (rock)). If the magma had broken through the surface it would have created a volcano but the magma hardens inside creating these granite bulges in an other wise flat landscape. Those rocks are then eroded away revealing the harder granite beneath. Our own Mourne Mountains are a great example of Dome Mountains.

Volcano Mountains are formed when earth’s crust opens and lava spills out onto the surface. The flow slows and cools blocking the vent – over time as the volcano opens and closes a mountain of lava layers is formed, often with a large hole or crater in the middle. For example: Mount St. Helens in North America Demonstrating Fold Mountain Formation

1. Roll each colour of clay into a strip about 2cm thick. For this 2. Place the strips on top of one another. experiment you 3. Trim the edges with the butter knife so the layers make a block like Neapolitan ice cream, will need: about 15cm in length.  3 x colours of 4. Place a wooden block at each end of your clay strip. modelling clay. 5. Now push the two blocks together, slowly and watch what happens to the clay.  A rolling pin. The two blocks represent the edges of two of earth’s plates. The clay is the sediment between  A butter knife. the plates. When the two plates collide the sediment gets forced up, forming folds. Note too  2x wooden how all the layers fold – this shows how layers of sea creature fossils and sea shells can often blocks. end up at the tops of mountains.

Section 1 2.Making a Mountain out of a...

NewUseful Words Suggested Learning Intentions andInformation Phrases We are learning to:

 The tallest 1. experiment with a malleable material – salt dough mountain above 2. observe, investigate and respond to information and imagination by sea level is Mt. creating our own mountain Everest at 3. experiment and contrast two styles of construction: salt dough and papier 29,029 feet (8,848 mache metres) but Mauna Kea, in Salt Dough (KS1) Hawaii, stands at 4 cups of plain flour 33,474 feet 1 cup of table salt (10,203 meters) - 1.5 cups of water 1 tablespoon of lemon juice (makes the finished dough harder) measured from top to bottom. METHOD  One side of Mt. 1. Put all the flour, the salt and lemon juice into a large mixing bowl and gradually add the Everest is in water, mixing to a soft dough. This should be neither too sticky, in which case add more flour, nor too dry, in which case add more water. China and the other is in Nepal. 2. When it is fully mixed take it out of the bowl and place it on a hard surface. The students can take turns to knead the dough until it is smooth and firm. This can take ten minutes.

3. Now get the group to discuss what features they may include and begin to fashion a mountain, based on some that they have been researching.

4. You can dry your work naturally in the air– but this will take a day or two in a warm room or you can bake it in an oven (not hotter than 100C)

5. Once fully dry revisit the project and get the children to paint the mountain according to some of the pictures they have been able to find.

Papier Mache (KS2)

1. First create a frame to put your papier mache on. Do this by scrunching sheets of newspaper tightly into balls and fix them into a general “mountainy” shape with masking tape.

2. Water down some PVA glue and dip strips of newspaper in it, then place them over the newspaper balls, completely covering them and completing the mountainy shape.

3. The students can create ridges, peaks, a summit, etc. as they have researched. The result is a 3D reminder of their learning.

4. Allow the model a couple of days to dry. Paint it with green and brown paints. Perhaps even give it a snow cap.

Section 1 3.Mountains! What are they good for?

New Words Suggested Learning Intentions and Phrases We are learning: Recreation 1. about how mountains affect our daily lives... Tourism 2. ...in particular the weather Climate Our mountains, here in the Mournes, are vital for our everyday life. Sometimes we are so focussed on getting round them or through them to get to Newry or Downpatrick we don’t Water Vapour stop to appreciate just what they do for us. The mountains give us things to do for Evaporation recreation, they bring tourists to the area, they are used for farming; wind energy is harnessed to drive turbines on wind farms to produce electricity and farmers Exposed graze their sheep. Rock is quarried and coniferous forests are planted on lower mountain Shelter slopes as a timber product to be felled. They are also home to a great variety of plants and animals- our local biodiversity. The Mournes play such an important role in our lives. Let’s take a closer look at some of those roles. Climate In the higher areas of the Mournes it is often cold and windy, but lower down and around the coast it is often much warmer. This is because at the peaks and along the ridges it is more exposed to air currents and all sorts of weather, like wind and rain – lowering For this the temperature in comparison to further down the slopes, perhaps in the foothills, where experiment you it is much more sheltered. The type of weather that a place has normally is called its will need: climate. The climate affects everything in that place including all the living things like  4 x jam jars (or plants and creatures. something Try this experiment to demonstrate just how climate works. (KS1 & 2) similar) Encourage the students to make predictions before carrying out the experiment.  cotton wool 1. Take four jam jars (or similar) and place damp cotton wool in the bottom of them.  water 2. Sprinkle seeds onto the damp cotton wool.  cress/ mustard 3. Now put one jar in the fridge, one on the window sill (this should be watered when or grass seed it needs it), a second on the window sill (this should not be watered) and one more outside (again don’t water it). 4. Check your seeds on a regular basis, making sure you water the one on the window sill (only the jar to be watered). 5. The results will show that very little will grow in the fridge. The watered pot on the window sill will do best. The dry one may sprout but will soon die and the one outside will be overwhelmed by rain. This demonstrates that little grows on the cold exposed peaks, nothing grows without water, too much water is not good either as it would only suit boggy plants and mosses, and finally that warm (regularly watered) climates produce lots of growth. 6. So, it is not surprising that often the slopes of the mountains are lush and green but the higher you are the less will grow.

Erosion For this One thing that all mountains have in common is wind! It’s really windy up there. Very experiment you often a combination of these really windy conditions, varying temperatures and lots of will need: water, breaks down and removes rock and soil from the top of the mountains. This gets blown and washed into the streams and down to the coast. This process is called  a bamboo cane erosion.  hole punch Wind (KS 1 & 2)  strong thread Just how windy is it around your school grounds? Make a wind gauge to measure how  some tissue windy it is. paper, printer 1. Cut pieces of each of the paper/ card materials (luggage label size) paper, thin card and thick 2. Put a hole in each with the hole punch. packaging card 3. Starting with the tissue paper at the top and working down to the heaviest card, tie them at regular intervals up the bamboo cane using the thread. Make sure they have plenty of space to fly freely and not get tangled with the others. 4. Now get the students to choose different areas of the school grounds to test their gauge. A gentle breeze will move the tissue paper, however, a strong wind will move the heavy packing card. 5. They can use the simple table in section 4 of this document to record their findings and discover where is the windiest area in their school grounds. Meteorologists use a similar scale for measuring wind called the Beaufort Scale. Students could For this research this and put it to use around their school experiment you grounds. will need:  a large clear How is rain formed? plastic water or Cola bottle Mountains play a huge part in making clouds and rain. There are tiny amounts of water in the air all the time. Normally we can’t see it but as the wind carries it higher up to the  hot water colder tops of the mountains this moisture turns to drops of water and makes clouds.  oven gloves Sometimes the water gets too heavy and falls as rain, sometimes it gets so cold above the mountain that it freezes and falls as snow. This is why snow often appears on the  an ice cube tops of mountains first, and often when there is no snow falling anywhere else.  a piece of black 1. Fill the bottle with hot water. Leave it for a minute. cloth or cardboard 2. Pour out half of the water. Be careful. Firmly hold the bottle with a drying cloth or oven gloves. 3. Put the ice cube on the opening of the bottle. It now begins to cool the water vapour in the bottle forming mini clouds inside. To get a better view you can hold the cloth or card behind the bottle to see the clouds forming.

Rainfall For this The water-cycle does not start with rain falling on a mountain. It starts with the experiment you mountain itself. As water in the air is pushed up the slopes of the mountain, higher into will need: the cooler air above the mountain, in the form of clouds. These form bigger drops within  a clear plastic the clouds until they get so heavy that they fall back to the ground and are channelled water or Cola into the streams above and below the ground and in turn the small streams (this is bottle called a catchment area) join bigger streams, join rivers and bigger rivers until they  scissors reach the coast and the sea.

 a stapler Having the Mournes outside our front door gives us a great opportunity to think about our local water cycle and how we get our water. Interestingly, Silent Valley Reservoir  a measuring jug was created by damming the Kilkeel river to provide water for Belfast. It gathers water  masking tape from all over the High Mournes and channels it to the reservoir. The land around Silent Valley has about 1,778mm of rain per year.  a trowel This experiment requires a little preparation on your behalf before taking it into the classroom. Each bottle needs to have the top cut off about 8 or 10cm from the top.

Useful Making a rain gauge Information: 1. Turn the cut – off top upside down and push it into the bottle. Staple it in place.

 In 1933 the 2. Put some tape on the sharp cut edges, just to make them safer. Belfast and 3. Go into the school grounds to a place where your gauge won’t be disturbed and dig a District Water small hole to fit the base of the bottle into. This is simply to hold it upright and stop it Commissioners from blowing over. It must be out in the open. opened the Silent Valley Reservoir. 4. At the same time each day go out and see how much water has gathered in your gauge. Lift the bottle pour the contents into the measuring jug and record how much  A granite wall rain has fallen in the last 24hours. was built to enclose the 5. You can plot a graph to show just how much rain has fallen. catchment area, 6. After a week ask the students which was the wettest day? 9000 acres. We

call it the Mourne Wall. Combined Weather recording  The Ben Crom Using your rain gauge, wind gauge, and a thermometer, get the students to record the reservoir was weather daily. This record can be used to plot graphs demonstrating how wet / dry a added in 1957 as certain month has been. Print off the weather symbols in Section 4 of this document, Greater Belfast and encourage the students to use them in their recording. grew.

11 SECTION SECTION

My home patch. The mighty Mournes Understanding The Mournes

1. My home – The Mournes. 2. My home in the Mournes.

3. Exploring my home.

Section 2 1. My home – The Mournes.

Suggested Learning Intentions New Words We are learning to: and Phrases 1. compare our Mourne mountains with the mountains we have learned about  magma 2. look closer at how the Mournes were formed  granite The Mourne Mountains are a series of Dome Mountains created by swelling Magma from  scree deep under the earths crust, just like a blister on your hand. Dome Mountains never get as high as other mountain types because the Magma does not have the power to push the surface up  erosion/ weathering as high as forces in creating other types. The cooling Magma forms igneous Granite, a hard unyielding rock that wears down little over time. This lack of erosion and glacial action during the last ice age means there is little soil left, so the hard rock hollows fill with peaty bogs.

For this Erosion in action. experiment you 1. Make sure your ingredients are dry before letting the class try will need: this experiment. 2. Mix the potting compost, gravel and sand.  1x mug of potting 3. Pile the mixture on a flat surface that is easily brushed clean. compost The floor is best. 4. Inflate the balloon and hold the neck about 15cm from the pile  1x mug of fine of mixture. gravel 5. Let the air out of the balloon.  1x mug of sand 6. Measure how far each material moves. Is there a difference in distance per material? Why might this be?  large balloon

 a ruler Here we see the effects of the wind on soil, sand and gravel. The wind is a powerful force and is constantly working to erode what we imagine to be our constant immovable mountains. When we let the air out of the balloon it Useful hits the light weight particles of soil and sand and moves them further than the gravel. On a Information mountain, the soil and sand gathers elsewhere and creates new habitats for plants and  The Mournes animals, or in streams and rivers and is carried down to the floodplain and sea where it forms consist of 12 mud. major granite peaks from 450m Connected Learning Opportunities (technically not a The Arts. The world Around Us. Maths and Numeracy. Create a 3D model of the Mourne landscape using mountain) to materials such as papier mache etc. or create a collage/mural of the Mourne landscape using different materials or 853m. photographs. You might get inspiration from John Luke’s painting, ‘In the Mournes’ 1936 pictured in the book, 'The Mountains of Mourne. A Celebration of a Place Apart’, by David Kirk. Key stage 2 students could try making the 3D model roughly to scale with reference to Ordnance Survey Maps: Sheet 29 The Mournes 1:50000 or Mourne Country Outdoor Pursuits Map 1:25000. Mathematics and Numeracy. Investigate scale. Using Ordnance Survey Maps of the Mournes, look at the distance the mountain range covers. Look at contours showing the steepness of the land. Look at heights of mountain peaks. Get the children to map out features of the school grounds using a suitable scale e.g. Play ground, car park, flower beds, school building etc.

Language and Literacy. Religious Education. Create a variety of artwork, writing and poems about the Mourne mountain landscape. This can incorporate spiritual feelings such as a sense of being part of a bigger picture, a part of creation when surrounded by the mountain landscape, a sense of elation when reaching the summit of a mountain etc. The 'Wayfarer in the Mournes' by J.S. Doran could be used as an example (See Page 32)

Section 2 2. My home in the Mournes.

New Words Suggested Learning Intentions and Phrases We are learning:  feature  that the name of my home tells me something of its features  slieve What’s in a name?

 summit The Mourne Mountains have very interesting names. Slieve Commedagh, Slieve Bearnagh, Ben Crom, Shanlieve, Eagle, Hen and Pigeon Rock. What we call something is very important. Parents take time to consider what they might call a new baby. A name has to be appropriate – it has to fit and, more often than not, a name should mean something. It’s the same with our home mountains. Most of them are named in Irish or have a Gaelic root.

Slieve is the Gaelic word for mountain so many of our Mournes have the title “The Mountain of…” For example Slieve Donard is the Mountain of St. Donard (a local holy man who is said to have had a hermitage on the summit (or top).

Ask the students to research the meaning of their own name and some of their friends. Perhaps their house has a name– does it have any significance? Then ask them to research the name of some of the Mountains and look at some pictures to see if the name correlates with the features on the Mountain or surrounding landscape.

Having looked at the connection between the names of some of the mountains and the features that give them the name, suggest that the students name a place that is important to them: their house, a place where they play, their granny’s garden. Another feature in the Mourne Landscape, Pollaphuca, is nestled in the “Gap” of Slieve Bearnagh. Pollaphuca means “pool of the goblin”. Although there is no pool, there are many holes, which is another interpretation for the word.

Ask the children to write a story about the hole of the goblins, ask them to imagine why people gave the feature that name.

Slieve Donard St. Donard's Mountain Ott Mountain Mountain Breast

Slieve Commedagh Mountain of watching Slieve Beg Little Mountain

Slieve Bearnagh Mountain of the gap Slieve Corragh Rugged Mountain

Slieve Binnian Mountain of the small peak Slieve Lamagan Crawling Mountain

Slieve Croob Mountain of the hoof Slieve Meelbeg Little Mountain of Ants

Slieve Muck Mountain of Pigs Slieve Meelmore Big Mountain of Ants

Ben Crom Stooped Peak Slievenaglogh Mountain of Stones

Butter Mountain In Irish means a mountain of Slieve Mountain of the lake of little butter Loughshannagh foxes

Connected Learning Opportunities Physical Education. The World Around Us. Play the” Mountain Peak “ game. Read out a list of world- wide mountain peaks to include some of the Mourne Mountains. i.e. Everest, Kilimanjaro, Snowdon, Errigal, Croke Patrick, Slieve Gullion, Slieve Gallion, Muckish, Ben Nevis, Binnian, Bearnagh, Donard, Lama- gan,Commedagh.) Get the children to run to the opposite side of the room if they think you’ve called out one of the Mourne Mountains each time you call out a new name.

Key Stage 1. Physical Education. Language and literacy. Play the Mourne Peaks Parachute Game. Gather the children evenly around the edges of the parachute. First of all make a big dome mountain. The children hold on to the edge of the parachute at waist level. On the count of 3, the children raise the parachute to their heads and bring it back down to their toes trapping lots of air underneath. In sequence, give each child one of 4 names of a Mourne Mountain peak. Now again on the count of 3, the children raise the parachute above their heads and you call out a Mourne Mountain peak. Only the children whose name is called out, run underneath the parachute to a vacated space as quickly as possible. Repeat for all the names. Repeat but this time all the children around the edge, bring the parachute down to their toes to trap the others underneath. Repeat for all named Peaks, seeing how many children you can catch underneath the parachute. Next make a mountain shelter. Counting the children in again, they should raise the parachute to their heads, bringing it over and round the back of their heads down to their bottoms. They must all sit down on the edge of the parachute underneath it. No-one must let go or run into the centre. Sitting on the edge traps air inside so ensure there are no gaps, otherwise it will collapse in the middle. Take a few moments inside the shelter to reflect– this is a great shelter to bring on a mountain walk. It is easy to carry and to put up instantly. Why might you need a shelter? How might it feel to be inside the shelter up a mountain. What sounds might you hear? 15

Section 2 3. Exploring my home.

New Words Suggested Learning Intentions and Phrases We are learning:

 tourist 1. about our own area, town and countryside

 visitor 2. about an issue in our local environment and how this changes over time

 survey

 season Surveying my area.

 symbols Basic map skills (drawing simple plans)

 plan This is a good activity to develop observation and information recording.

 map 1. Have a small model of a house or something similar with no roof on it so that you can see inside. Place it on the floor in the middle of your group. Place some items inside it like a model chair, table, lamp or person and ask the students to look carefully at where everything is placed. 2. Discuss with them how they might record where things are in the house. They could write it out in sentences but a plan would be more accurate. Give an example by demonstrating how they might draw the walls of the house and the items placed inside. Talk about symbols and how they are like a picture, abbreviations, like emoticons, or text language (e.g. Lol), they tell us where something is placed without having to write a word or title. Create symbols for the items in your house and use these in your demonstration plan. Now move the items around and ask the group to draw their own plans of the house. They should use the symbols they created with you in their drawing. Place an ‘X’ in the house and ask the group to draw the ‘X’ on their plan. 3. Ask the class to draw a plan of the classroom making up their own symbols for some of the items in it. If your classroom has a lot of furniture then you could give the students a list of items to include. 4. Prepare a set of classroom maps. Place an ‘X’ on a certain piece of furniture or place on the map. Ask the children to identify where it is in the room. Elect a student to go and investigate it. At this hiding spot, have another map marked with another ‘X’ leading the class to follow the clues around the room. Instead of an ‘X’, maps could be marked with different letters to make a word, e.g. Mournes

Connected Learning Opportunities Language and Literature. The World Around Us. Arts. Maths and Numeracy. 1. Now encourage the class to look at some Mourne maps and find a range of features such as their nearest town, their house, school, church, football pitch. 2. Now expand the search to the closest mountain peak to their house. 3. Talk about the variety of symbols that the map makers have used to show information on the map. Talk about scale. 4. Now encourage the class to make their own maps showing their own local area. It should include their home, school, roads and some natural features like local mountains. Talk about how their home is connected to the local mountains.

The Mournes attract many visitors each year and this has many benefits to our local community and our economy but it can make things a little more busy as more and more people visit and try to live in the area. Certain things are more difficult to do during the tourist season due to increased visitor numbers. For example just getting around becomes much more difficult. More traffic means longer travel times, more waiting time and can mean more danger on the roads.

Why not carry out a traffic survey?: How to count traffic 1. Decide where to hold your survey. Decide on one particular road, a network of roads or junction between major roads. 2. Decide what sorts of vehicles to record. You might want to count pedestrians and cyclists as well as the different types of vehicles. 3. Decide when to hold your survey. Morning, or afternoon? This survey should be done at different times of the year e.g. February– (Winter) and June– (Summer tourist season) to demonstrate the difference between local traffic and the increase in traffic during the tourist seasons. Divide the survey time into 15-minute blocks to make it easier to compare the results between surveys. Each survey should be carried out at least twice at the same location and at the same time of day. 4. Position a couple of people at key points to record the number of vehicles travelling in both directions. 5. Compile your results into graph form. 6. NB WORKING BESIDE ROADS CAN BE DANGEROUS SO EXERCISE CAUTION AT ALL TIMES.

17 SECTION SECTION

“There’s gold in them thar hills” Understanding the biodiversity of the Mournes

1. The variety of life. Biodiversity. 2. The interdependence of things.

3. Precious life.

Section 3 The Variety of Life. Biodiversity.

Suggested Learning Intentions New Words We are learning to: and Phrases 1. recognise the plant and animal species that live in an upland habitat  habitat 2. compare and contrast wildlife around our school with wildlife in the high Mourne area  flora Activities:  species What is a habitat?  upland Quite simply, it is where a plant or animal lives normally.  nutrients Research pictures of uplands as a particular habitat to refer to in your class: use the  exposed internet or Mourne specific books e.g. ‘The Mountains of Mourne. A celebration of a Place Apart’ David Kirk.  native What types of plants (flora) might you find growing high up in the Mourne mountains?  heathland The seeds of many flowers find it difficult to grow in the poor soils and the cold, wet, windy  specialist weather of mountains. The higher up (altitude) a mountain you go the fewer flowers you will find. Few trees can grow high up on a mountain because of the strong winds and lack of soil. An example of a tree which has adapted to these harsh conditions is the rowan or mountain - ash. Some specialist plants can grow high up on a mountain side. They grow low to the ground so that the strong winds will not blow them away and can tolerate the low nutrients in the soil. Some areas of heath lower down the mountain can be very dry and some are waterlogged from time to time. Water collects in poor soil in high land creating a blanket bog; a habitat where large areas of level or gently sloping ground are smothered under a blanket of deep peat fed by high levels of rainfall rather than groundwater. The upland habitat is a patchwork or mosaic of areas of a) wet, blanket bog, usually above 200m on gentler slopes, in valley bottoms where drainage is poor and dead plant materials have built up over time and has not been able to break down in cool, wet conditions, b) upland heath on steep slopes above 330m and c) dry montane heaths on mountain summits above 600m. There are fewer flowers in heaths than in meadows and fields e.g. the beautiful starry saxifrage. Flowers that are able to grow sometimes dominate large sections of land. The most common heathland plant is common heather or “ling”. Sometimes it is burnt to encourage new shoots to grow. Gorse or “whin” can also be very widespread. What makes the types of plants you’d find growing on the mountain tops different from what you’d find growing in your garden or school grounds? The soils in the higher, cooler, wetter parts of the Mourne mountains are very thin, peaty, low in nutrients, stony and acidic due to the geology- rock upon which they are growing. The Mournes are made from Granite. They developed over 50 million years ago, 15 million years after the dinosaurs had become extinct. Compared to many other mountain ranges the Mournes are very young, newcomers into a much older landscape. Soils in your school grounds will be deeper, well drained, and richer in nutrients. Plants will be more sheltered from the wind and will not be exposed. Most plants growing in your school grounds will have been bought and planted there especially. They may not be native and are cultivated.

NB a study of habitat can be a useful topic to discuss for the World Around Us topic on how place affects plant and animal life.

What type of animals (fauna) might you find living high up in the Mourne mountains?

In the high Mournes, there is less wildlife than in other habitats such as the coast or woods, because there is less food to eat and conditions are harsher but the heathland and bog habitats still support some important species. Birds like red grouse, skylark and curlew nest on the ground, in the heather. Ravens and peregrines find safe nesting sites on cliff ledges while the rare ring ouzel make its home on scree slopes. There are many invertebrates e.g. heather beetle, green tiger beetle, keeled skimmer dragonfly, heather ladybird in the uplands and even a little lizard (Vivaparous Lizard) .

Encourage the students to create mini – upland gardens in the school grounds. By creating a mini-mournes upland habitat they will be encouraging local biodiversity and learning about Upland species at the same time. They could even plant rowan (mountain ash) trees in the grounds Split the class into smaller groups and ask them to research some species of plants, shrubs (low growing bushes), invertebrates (minibeasts), and birds that live in the high places of the Mourne mountains. There are three Fact Files at the back of this programme which will guide you in what species should be covered. Many species living on the upland areas are specialists: they have adapted to survive only in this exposed habitat. Instruct the group to discuss: Why they are doing the project. What they will do in their container to show an upland habitat. Where they will position their container. Who will be involved in creating their mini-habitat. When they will work on their containers and how they will go about creating it and caring for it. They should record all this information. You could dedicate a flowerbed in your school grounds or perhaps get a Connected Learning Opportunities range of tyres (these can be painted in bright colours) fill them with topsoil and then get the class to “landscape” them according to their plans. You The World Around Us. Language and could include heathers (erica carnea), juniper (juniperus communis ‘Green Literacy. The Arts. Using a simple Carpet’ or ‘Blue Carpet’), rocks, moss and even some grasses like field guide key, or by researching on the internet, identify and look at the dif- common cotton grass (eriophorum angustifoium) or wavy hair grass ferences between the 3 types of (Deschampsia flexuosa ‘Tetra Gold’). These garden varieties are available heather found in upland habitats- bell to purchase at garden centres and will create a similar ‘landscape’ and heather, ling and cross - leaved heath. remember, never take plants from the wild. Describe and draw the differences. (Bell has needle like leaves that grow in Also encourage your class to survey, over time, the minibeasts that visit threes. It is found on dry heaths. Ling is the containers compared with another similar sized area in your grounds. bushy with many, often twisted stems, leaves are triangular and flat pressed The students should write up their project and take photographs for visual like tiny hat pegs and the flowers are display, make charts for mode, mean and median number of minibeast pale purple. It is very widespread in species. Note too how the created habitat changes over the seasons. Go uplands. Cross - leaved heath leaves one step further to make this a long term project and grow your own plants grow in fours. It’s flowers form a cluster from seed. Collect tree seeds in autumn from e.g. Rowan. Wildflower rising from the same point in the main seeds can be purchased from your local garden centre or collect some stem and have stalks of the same length. It grows in wet heaths and seeds from wild plants. Monitor the growth of plants over time. Plot a graph bogs). and encourage the students to compare with others in the class. 20

Upland Taboo Get the class to research and print photos of the species in the Fact files at the back of this programme, to create taboo cards. Add the information, below, to each photo - cut and laminate. This activity can be done as a whole class or split the class into smaller groups. Give one member of the group a taboo card. Ask them not to let anyone else see it. Ask them to take on the role of the plant or animal on their card. Ask them to read the information on the card sentence by sentence. See if the rest of the group can guess who they are. If they don’t guess it straight away give them more of the clues or act out the character. However, they must not use the taboo word at the top of each card!!!! Taboo word: Sundew I live in wet boggy ground. I have round reddish leaves covered in sticky hairs. I like to trap insects to get the nutrients I need to grow.

Taboo word: Peregrine Falcon I am the fastest creature on the planet. I live on mountain cliff edges and sometimes in quarries. I give a harsh warning cry as I soar through the air with my pointed streamlined wings.

Taboo word: Irish Hare I am a medium sized plant eater (herbivore). I have a reddish-brown coat, long ears with black tips and powerful back legs. I eat mostly grasses, but also heather, bilberries and even seaweed in coastal areas. I feed mostly at night and rest during the day in a scraped out hollow called a 'form'.

Taboo word: Keeled Skimmer dragonfly The male of my species is blue and the female is brown. I breed in shallow boggy pools on sheltered sunny slopes. My larvae grow for two years.

Taboo word: Bell Heather I give the Mourne mountain landscape its brilliant purple colour in summer. My flowers are important to bees for making a dark rich honey. I have needle like leaves that grow in threes. I like dry ground.

Taboo word: Wheatear I travel from Africa to visit the Mournes in early spring. I nest in rocky cracks in cliffs and scree. I mainly live on the ground and hop or run along the ground. I am a blue-grey bird with black wings and white below with an orange flush down to the breast.

Wildlife Estate Agents

A habitat is where an animal lives. It is more than just a home as it includes everything an animal needs to survive. Split the class into small groups for discussion. Get them to pretend they are wildlife estate agents and think of all the features of an upland habitat they would advertise to attract animals to this home. Each group must draw a labelled picture of the upland habitat they are advertising, remembering to include food, shelter and water. Think about who might live there.

Listening to Nature’s Orchestra

KS1 1. Find a space and get all the kids to stand quietly. 2. Get them to close their eyes and listen to the nature sounds around. Wind, trees, birds etc. 3. Ask them to open their eyes and list the sounds they heard. 4. Now ask them to do the same with sounds that are made by man made things.

KS2 1. Give each pupil a pencil and a “sound” card. Ask them to put an X in the centre of the page. 2. Tell the pupils that they are going to make a map of the sounds they hear around them and the X on the centre of the page represents their own position. 3. Get the children to spread out so that they have their own space. 4. Ask them to close their eyes and to listen to the sounds around them for a little while without recording. 5. Once they have listened for about a minute you can get them to start recording on the paper where the sounds are in relation to their space ( in front, behind, far or near.) Get them to sketch symbols of the sounds they hear e.g. a music note might represent birdsong, a car could represent traffic and feet might represent footsteps. They can use tally marks beside their symbol to represent how many times they hear that particular sound. The symbols should be simple to remind the pupils what they heard for later discussion. 6. After the children have completed their maps get them to sit in a circle and discuss how they felt about the activity. How many sounds did they hear? What sounds did they like best/worst? What sounds were natural/manmade? How far away were the sounds? What animals would rely on their senses in this way? What other senses would be important for wildlife? 7. Go one step further to make this an interesting project. Record and edit the “natural sounds of Mourne”. Make an audio CD of the actual sounds or create a song, rap, piece of music using voices / instruments or handmade equipment to reflect what the class heard.

Connected Learning Opportunities ICT. The World Around Us. PDMU. Language and Literature. The Arts. Jigsaw game. Split the class into groups. Get them to research some of the upland plant and animal species on the internet or in Field Guide Books. They should type up information on each species and print out an enlarged picture/photo of each one. They can then be made into paper laminated jigsaws with information on the back of each piece which can be relayed as a presentation to the rest of the class. What is the name of your species. One interesting fact about it. What does it eat? What problems does it face.? How can we help? Groups can then swap jigsaws. Alternatively the jigsaws can be prepared in advance by the teacher.

Connected Learning Opportunities ICT. The World Around Us. PDMU. Language and Literature. The Arts. Upland Snap. Split the class into groups. Get them to find photos of the following species on the internet and print pairs of them off (playing card size) with the name of the species underneath and laminate: rowan, juniper, ling heather, cross - leaved heather, common gorse, bell heather, sundew, butterwort, cotton grass, keeled skimmer, wheatear, peregrine falcon, bog moss, raven, Irish hare, common lizard, red grouse, skylark. Stick to card to create snap cards. Alternatively the snap cards can be prepared in advance by the teacher. With a class of 30 children you should split the group in two to play snap. To increase the chances of a “snap” divide the pack of cards so that the same species stay within the one group and are not divided between the two groups. This is a fun way for kids to learn and memorise different upland species. Encourage the children to call out the names of the species rather than just shouting “snap”. 1.Get each group seated in a circle. 2. Shuffle and deal all the cards evenly and face down between each child, telling them not to look at their cards. 3. Pick a child to start and on your command they should begin to place their top card in the centre of the circle, calling out the name of the species. 4. Continue around the circle in a clockwise direction. 5. When a card is placed in the centre of the circle that is identical to the previous card, the first child to shout “snap” and place their hand on the top of the pile, wins all the cards in the pile. 6. That child then places their top card in the centre and the game continues until your time limit is reached or one child has won all the cards. 7. Children with no remaining cards are allowed to continue to shout “snap” but if they make a mistake and call snap unnecessarily they are out of the game. 8. Children with remaining cards that shout “snap” unnecessarily more than once must surrender their cards to the central pile.

The World Around Us. PDMU. Phys Ed. Invent a new Mourne Natural Heritage themed game to educate other classes in your school about a particular aspect of what you have learned. This could take the form of a board game or a physical outdoor game, perhaps involving teams. Do not repeat any of the games you took part in with your own class.

The World Around Us. Language and Literacy. Phys Ed. Create a Mourne upland nature table in your classroom. Encourage pupils to bring in actual samples or scaled photographs of plant species etc. encountered on family outings/walks (no uprooting!) to display. Class should research each item brought in and write labels with background information on each item. (Refer to nature table on AYW website.) This could be made into a scrapbook by either pressing samples and/or taking photos of species displayed on table, or by creating a video with running commentary on items on display.

Section 3 2.The interdependence of things.

New Words Suggested Learning Intentions and Phrases We are learning to:

 energy  investigate food chains and webs within the Mourne uplands

 food web  recognise that an upland is a community of flora and fauna

 producers  recognise that all the elements of upland life are connected

 consumers  recognise that heathland vegetation is central to upland life in Mourne mountains and in our world and that our actions can affect it  herbivores Every living thing needs energy to live. Every time animals do something (run, jump) they  carnivores use energy.

 omnivores Animals get energy from the food they eat, and all living things get energy from food. Plants use sunlight, water and nutrients to get energy (in a process called photosynthesis). Energy is necessary for living beings to grow.

A food chain shows how each living thing gets food, and how nutrients and energy are passed from creature to creature. Food chains begin with plant-life, and end with animal-life. Some animals eat plants, some animals eat other animals.

A simple upland food chain could start with grass, which is eaten by Irish hares. Then the Irish hares are eaten by foxes.

There can be many more links to a food chain. At each link in the chain, energy is being transferred from one animal to another.

There is even more to our illustration chain. After a fox dies, fungi (like mushrooms) and other decomposers break down the dead fox, and turn the remains of the fox into nutrients, which are released into the soil. The nutrients (plus sun and water) then cause the grass to grow. It's a full circle of life and energy!!

Food web game. Stand the class in a circle. Give each person a sticky label with a plant or animal from the Heathland written on it. Somebody is chosen to begin with a ball of string. Ask them to hold the end of the string and give a statement such as,’ I am a greenfly. I am eaten by a ladybird.’ Still holding the end, they then throw the ball of string across the circle to the ladybird. The ladybird then has to find someone else in the circle who can make a connection to them e.g. a Wheatear. They keep hold of the string by wrapping it around their finger and then throwing the ball. Gradually, as the students find other connections, a web is created linking everybody in the circle. Keep the string taut. Some of the players may receive the ball more than once e.g. Heather or Grasses. The game illustrates a very important point, that everything on the Heathland is connected by the food web. Now give the web a little tug so that all the kids feel the movement. Explain that if something happens to the Habitat– such as a mountain fire– everything within that habitat feels the stress. Now suggest that something has happened to affect one of the players in the circle e.g. That somebody has decided to chop down the tree, spray the greenfly or burn some heather. A player affected has to ‘die’ by sitting down or taking a step back. Because the string is wrapped around their finger the string is pulled tighter. Ask the players if any of them felt that ‘tug’ on the string. At least two other players should have. See how they will be affected by what has happened. These players may ‘die’ too and so more feel the tug. Continue until the entire circle has felt the string tug. The game can be started again with an alternative ‘action’ being given. Finish by discussing the interdependence of nature.

There aren’t many kinds of animals in upland habitats compared to other habitats such as the coast or woods because there is less food for them to eat and conditions are harsher- it is less sheltered, wetter and colder. Smaller birds eat bilberries, young shoots of heather and seeds from mosses and grasses, whilst the large birds of prey feed mainly on small birds and other animals.

One plant that has specialised and manages to thrive in the uplands is the sundew. Why not grow sundew plants and keep them in your classroom. (Kits can be purchased online - some garden centres may supply these). Monitor the growth of the plant over time. Plot graphs and compare with others in the class. Feed it with cheese, meat and egg. Place some tiny pieces on a leaf and in 1 or 2 days they’ll have been eaten. The sundew does not react to breadcrumbs. Write up the experiment for visual display or perhaps this could be captured on video and made into a short, film.

Connected Learning Opportunities

The Arts. The world Around Us. Art project. Create a collage/ mural featuring Mourne plant and animal species. Get pupils to create different animal and plant species to add to the collage and to consider in which parts of the collage they should go. Ask the students if they can see any connections between the species, either in a food chain / web or habitat.

World Around Us. Phys Ed. Language and Literacy. ICT. Go on a short nature walk in a heathland area near your school. Note and photograph what plant species you find. Go on a minibeast safari using bug boxes and record a tally of what species you find. Record any bird species observed or any calls heard. Record presence or evidence of any other animal species you find e.g. animal homes, pellets, tracks, fur, faeces etc. Make a scrap book or video of your trip. Physical Education. The World Around Us. Stalking Game. This game gets children thinking about a simple upland food chain and encourages them to be quiet when out looking for birds or animals. This activity is fun but is completed in silence. (Blindfolded volunteers are Irish Hares sitting on a mountainside at dusk munching heather for their dinner listening out for a predatory fox who might eat them.) 1. Split the class into 4 smaller groups sitting in four corners of the site or get your small group to sit in a circle. 2. Ask for a volunteer from each corner or someone from the circle to be blindfolded and sit in the centre. 3. Sit the volunteer/s in the centre and blindfold them. Set an object in front of each volunteer e.g. bunch of keys. 4. Now elect someone from the circle or from each corner to creep forward and steal the object from the blindfolded person. 5. However, if the blindfolded person hears a sound they should point in the direction of the sound. If you think they are pointing at the person creeping forward then that person is out and must sit down.

KS1 Heathland Treasure Hunt.

This is a great activity as part of a nature walk through heathland and can be done in pairs or small groups. Get the children to find things you’ve pre decided. At the end of the activity get pupils to form a circle and share their findings.

Sample treasure Hunt Useful Information Parts of the food chain 5 green things Plants are called producers. This is because they Something prickly produce their own food! They do this by using light 2 seeds energy from the Sun, carbon dioxide from the air and water from the soil to produce food - in the form of Something hard glucose/sugar.

Food for a herbivore Animals are called consumers. This is because they cannot make their own food, so they need to Something with lots of cracks consume (eat) plants and/or animals.

Herbivores are animals that eat only plants Something that shouldn’t be there Carnivores are animals that eat only animals. Omnivores are animals that eat both animals Something that a bird might eat AND plants.

Something shiny Humans are also omnivores!

A sign that an animal may have been there Bacteria and fungi are decomposers. They eat decaying matter - dead plants and animals and in the process they break them down and decompose Something that has been nibbled by an animal or insect them. When that happens, they release nutrients and mineral salts back into the soil - which then will be Something beautiful used by plants.

Something sticky Most animals eat more than one type of food. Feeding patterns like this are called food webs and Something noisy are usually more complicated than food chains.

KS2 Heathland Profiling (transect sampling).

If you cannot visit a heathland for this activity, don’t worry. It can be done in your school grounds to provide a baseline for a small area of the grounds that you could enhance with upland – like plants later. You could then carry out a comparative study between heathland and your school grounds.

Explain to the class that they are wildlife explorers and they are going to find out what kinds of plants are growing in the heathland/their school grounds. Get the class to work in pairs or small groups and give each one a hula hoop, pen, recording sheet and ID chart. Explain that to make their survey a fair test they must throw the hula hoop and explore the area inside the hoop (ie where it lands). Using the ID charts see if the pupils can identify what is growing in the hoop. Get them to record each species, if they can, and to count how many different plants they have, using a pre designed recording sheet. Collate the information after the activity and make bar charts of the most common plants they found.

Food Chain game.

Split the class into groups. Get them to find photos of the following species on the internet and print them off (playing card size) with the name of the species underneath and laminate. Alternatively these can be prepared in advance.

Resources:

 plant/creature laminated cards

 4 ropes

Preparation:

 the end of each of the 4 ropes is tied around a chair/cane/tree, evenly spaced in a row with the rest of the rope coiled on the ground next to the chair/cane/tree

 picture cards are tied around chair/cane/tree in staggered rows behind the coiled rope, to form 4 food chains, in the following order: heather heather beetle red grouse peregrine falcon bilberry Irish hare fox (fox dies after it has eaten.) raven

Algae caddis fly keeled skimmer common lizard gorse gorse shield bug wheatear buzzard

How to… Split the children into 4 even groups behind each rope. Tell them that they are going to create a food chain. Explain that there are rows of pictures of plants and creatures tied to the trees. Using the rope, each team links the pictures in order of how they think each item is eaten by passing the rope in a loop around each chair/cane/tree with a picture (there is no need to tie any knots). Discussion: When each group has finished gather them along the path at the beginning of each food chain. Check that they got their chain finished correctly. Ask the group whether they found this exercise difficult and why. Most will have found it complicated. Explain that food chains are complex, as most creatures don’t eat just one food but a variety and so many of the chains could have crossed over - this would be called a food web.

Q What would happen if I took a giant pair of scissors and cut the rope at the first level? A The creatures above this level which depend on the plants for food would starve and die. That is why heathland and bog plants are so important as primary producers in an upland habitat. This game can also be played as a form of tag where each child is given a picture to hold or tied to them and they must create their own food chain by tagging something they would eat and hold hands with that person. 27

KS1. Parachute peregrine-red grouse.

Gather the children evenly around the edges of the parachute. Discussion… This is a game about upland food chains. Q Who can explain what a food chain is? This food chain involves red grouse which are eating the heather leaves, and in turn are being chased and eaten by a peregrine falcon. How to…

 Choose approximately 6 volunteers to be red grouse.

 The red grouse must get underneath the parachute (representing the heather) on all fours.

 Choose another volunteer to be a peregrine falcon.

 The peregrine falcon gets on all fours on top of the parachute.

 Everyone else kneels at the edge of the parachute whilst moving it up and down to create ripples of wind blowing the heather to help hide the red grouse.

 The peregrine falcon must move around on top of the parachute trying to catch the red grouse which are moving underneath the parachute.

 When a red grouse is caught they must move to the edge of the parachute and help the others to create ripples.

 The game finishes when all the red grouse are caught.

 Repeat the game until everyone has had a turn at being either a red grouse or a peregrine falcon.

Connected Learning Opportunities Physical Education. World Around Us – fly, skimmer, lizard

Discussion… This is another game about upland food chains. This food chain involves a fly, which is eaten by a Keeled Skimmer (dragonfly), which is in turn eaten by a Lizard. However, when the Lizard dies, its body decomposes and it is eaten by the fly larvae! The game is a bit like Rock, Paper, Scissors.

How to…

 Split the group into two equal teams.  Get each team to line up shoulder to shoulder, and then get the two teams facing each other about eight strides apart.  Demonstrate an action for each of the creatures and get the children to copy you.  Each team should now clump together and must decide which creature they are going to be and keep it from the other team. The whole team must be the same. They should now resume their shoulder to shoulder line up. On the count of 1,2,3 both teams act out their chosen creature. The top creature in the food chain chases the opposing team back to a pre arranged “safe” zone however, if someone is caught they become a member of the opposite team. Continue until the whole group becomes one team or give a maximum run time. If there is a stalemate situation i.e. if both teams choose the same creature, they must return to their huddle and choose another creature. The food chain order is as follows: lizards eat skimmers, skimmers eat flies and flies eat lizards.

Section 3 3. Precious life.

New Words Suggested Learning Intentions and Phrases We are learning to:  biodiversity 1. recognise the problems that plants and animals in upland habitats are facing  endangered 2. accept that many of these problems are caused by human action or lack  extinction of human action 3. act responsibly to help care for our fragile upland habitat  invasive

 conservation Without the wide range of plants and animals around us we would not be able to survive

on this planet. We must conserve this variety of life or “biodiversity”, as it feeds and  sustainable clothes us, provides us with medicines and adds variety to our surroundings. Plants and  leave no animals face an increasing number of threats and evidence from around the world shows trace that species are being lost or becoming extinct more quickly than ever. As a country we are signed up to an agreement to protect and improve global wildlife. In Northern Ireland  countryside some breeding bird species are nearing extinction such as the corncrake, and numbers of code some species in the Mournes are getting lower, in particular the Red Grouse. The Mournes

 erosion have a number of valuable upland habitats such as upland heath, montane heath and blanket bog but these are at risk of serious damage or loss. Some areas of upland Mourne are protected at National and European levels by government designations.

The living landscape of the Mourne Uplands does not stand still and is constantly changing in response to environmental, economic and social pressures. These habitats may look like wildernesses, but they have been carefully shaped and managed by humans over time. In order to conserve them as they are, they need to be continually managed so that they don’t become scrubby woodland.

Fire-starter game Fact File: These issues affect upland wildlife in the following  Ask the children what little creatures they might find ways: living in the uplands? What sort of plants do they depend upon to survive for food, shelter etc.? In the Mourne uplands a very noticeable change is that the distinctive colourful heathers are not as visible as in  Ask the children, where they are standing, to the past. pretend to be one of those little creatures. Agriculture. Farming methods have played a major role  Get some adults (teaching/ classroom assistants) over a long time in shaping the beautiful landscape we see today. Putting too many sheep to graze in one area to pretend to be clumps of heather and spread out (overgrazing) in the past has caused upland heath to evenly over the area. decrease (deterioration/degradation). This means that  When you say ‘Go’, the children run around heather has been eaten away and trampled and the pretending to be little upland creatures. area is taken over by rough grasses which have little value to a variety of wildlife.  When you shout ‘Stop’, the children gather around In recent years allowing some areas to go under grazed the adult ‘heather’. by sheep or unmanaged by stopping controlled burning  You are a nasty fire-starter/arsonist who wants to which encourages the regrowth of new shoots of play with matches on your walk in the mountains heather, has caused many areas of upland heath or bogs to become overgrown. Increased vegetation and because you are bored, have nothing else better to spread of invasive species has increased the chance of do and think it might be fun. You do not realise or wildfires spreading. care about the damage you will do to this fragile environment. You have a big box of matches in Upland Heath in Mourne has also suffered from burning where wildfires have been accidentally lit or deliberately your pocket. Tease the children as to which lit and uncontrolled so that the fire runs out of control heather plant you are going to set alight first. and burns large areas of heather, killing many insects,  Pretend to strike a match to burn one of the birds and small mammals in its path and leaving less heather plants down. This heather is now out of the habitat for them to survive in. Upland heath has also suffered from trampling due to increased numbers of game. walkers, sometimes not using established routes and  The upland creatures scatter and all children must the use of all terrain vehicles and scramblers. run around again until you shout ‘stop’. On lower slopes drainage to reclaim land to farm, large scale extraction of stone and conversion of heathland  Repeat until there is only one heather plant left. have changed the landscape and resulted in the loss of important habitats.  Whilst the children are gathered around the last remaining heather, ask them what would happen to Tourism. Increased use of the uplands for recreation all the creatures when the last heather in the e.g. hillwalking can lead to erosion, litter and upland is burned down. They should reply that the disturbance to breeding wildlife. creatures would die because they have nowhere to Invasion by non-native or alien species (species from live, less to eat and cannot breathe without the other countries that do not naturally grow or live here) introduced to Mourne e.g. Rhododendron and oxygen that the plants produce. Emphasize that Cotoneaster causes deterioration of natural habitats. habitats are important for our wildlife and we need These plants take over and shade other plants so that to look after them. they can no longer get nutrients from the soil or light to survive. Global warming is a threat to Mourne: rising temperatures rise, drier habitats and increased erosion will impact first on more vulnerable species that live in the high Mournes.

How can we help?

Many people are employed in environmental jobs. Their work involves surveying, monitoring and recording habitats and species to assess whether they are under threat. They then suggest how the habitats and species can be helped through the creation of management plans.

Many more are involved in making sure these habitats and species are conserved and improved by following management plans practically on the ground and by monitoring progress. Others are involved in educating people about these problems and how they can be solved so that we learn from our past mistakes and help improve our biodiversity.

We can learn more about our upland habitats by taking an interest in them through going on exploration walks with friends and family. We can encourage family and friends by telling them what we have learned.

We can behave responsibly when we are out and about in upland areas by following the countryside code and leave no trace principles:  Not littering  Lifting any litter we find already there  Not disturbing wildlife by using existing paths and established routes  Not being overly noisy  Not uprooting plants  Keeping dogs on leads  Using stiles to cross fences and walls  Not interfering with livestock  Leaving gates as we find them  Preventing the spread of fires by putting out matches and cigarettes and using a stove for cooking instead of a fire.

We can report important sightings to relevant organisations e.g. illegal dumping, unauthorised use of vehicles, wildfires should be reported to PSNI and Fire and Rescue Service. Non– emergencies can be reported to NIEA.

Rare species or invasive species sightings can be reported to Mourne Heritage Trust, RSPB, Ulster Wildlife Trust, CEDaR or ispot (recording website)

We can take practical action and volunteer to take part in organised events such as litter lifts. Such events may be advertised by Mourne Heritage Trust, Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful or your local council.

Connected Learning Opportunities Language and Literacy. PDMU. Debate issues around fires in the mountains. This could be done through role play( a courtroom scene perhaps), group discussion, the creation of a power point presentation.

The Arts. The World Around Us. PDMU Design a poster or create and film an advert for tourism, highlighting an issue facing upland habitats e.g. Threats from over trampling by walkers, dumping and littering, invasive species.

The Arts. The World Around Us. Language and Literacy. Design your own invasive species. In small groups design an imaginary invasive species. Invent a name, where it is from, how did it get here, what makes it a successful invasive species, what problems is it causing, how can we stop it spreading? Draw a picture of the invasive species.

31 SECTION SECTION

Resources.

'Wayfarer in the Mournes'

J.S. Doran

Sing a song of pleasant beaches Where the mountains meet the sea. Sing of woods and shadowed streamlets From the uplands bounding free. Sing of crags against the high sky,

Shepherd's path and quarry track, 4 Stone fringed fields, scots pine and fuchsia, All the things that call us back. Sing of remote tarn and valley,

Brown bog, castellated ridge. Sing of quiet road and loanin Winding to a granite bridge. Sing of gorse and rock-strewn foothills, And of tidy homesteads where Peace-loving, kindly people Smile a Mourne welcome there.

Useful Websites

1. www.mournelive.com Mourne Heritage Trust 2. www.doeni.gov.uk/niea Northern Ireland Environment Agency 3. www.visitmournemountains.co.uk Mourne Mountains and Ring of Gullion 4. www.newryandmourne.gov.uk/documents/FinalLBAPDocument.PDF Newry and Mourne Local Biodiversity Action Plan 5. www.niwater.com/sitefiles/resources/pdf/silent-valley-information-leaflet.pdf Northern Ireland Water 6. www.nmni.com/cedar Centre for Environmental Data and Recording 7. www.butterfly-conservation.org Butterfly Conservation Northern Ireland 8. www.rspb.org.uk Royal Society Protection of Birds 9. www.ulsterwildlife.org Ulster Wildlife Trust 10. www.nationaltrust.org.uk National Trust 11. www.facebook.com/MourneNatureWatch Mourne Nature watch facebook page 12. www.facebook.com/mournelive Mourne Heritage Trust facebook page 13. www.ispotnature.org Ispot share nature 14. www.biodiversityni.com Biodiversity NI 15. www.tollymoreredsquirrelgroup.com Tollymore Red Squirrel group 16. www.visitmournemountains.co.uk Mourne Mountains and Ring of Gullion

Useful contacts

Mourne Mountains Landscape Partnership Unit 3, Cornmill Quay Annalong Marine Park Annalong Co Down BT34 4QG

Tel: 028 4376 7391 Email: [email protected]

Biodiversity Fact File 1

The following specialist plants survive in the harsh mountain conditions of thin soils, strong winds, low temperatures and high rainfall. They can be found in different parts of the uplands.

 Grey woolly fringe moss, and alpine club moss carpet the highest summits.  Purple bell heather, ling and crowberry may thrive on the lower slopes.  Bright bog mosses grow where there are natural springs of water and flushes. Here, sundews and butterworts trap insects to provide nitrogen.  Bouldery stream banks provide safe places, free from grazing animals, for rare plants such as juniper to grow.  Roseroot, goldilocks and parsley fern cling to rare pockets of soil on cliff edges.  Bright green bog mosses, reddish cotton grass, cross - leaved heather, yellow asphodel and pink lousewort grow in the blanket bogs in valley bottoms.  Quillwort and water hyacinth grow in mountain lakes.

Juniper Juniper is one of only a handful of plants native to Ireland that have grown here since the end of the last ice age (around 12,000 years ago) and could have been growing in the Mourne Mountains since then. It is certainly a unique form of the shrub, which has survived only in parts of the mountains which are hard to get to. One of only three conifers native to Northern Ireland, it is a prickly-leafed shrub which grows thickly, mostly low-growing because it tends to be found in exposed places such as rocky outcrops. Although a conifer it produces a blue-black fleshy berry instead of the usual woody cone. The juniper found in the Mournes is very valuable because it has recently been discovered that it is genetically distinct to the area. The Mourne Heritage Trust has started to take cuttings from juniper found in the Mournes, to grow on in pots in their tree nursery, to be replanted in the uplands.

Sundew The sundew grows in boggy places where the soils have few of the nutrients the plant needs. To make up for this the plant has sweet smelling glittering droplets on the red hairs edging its round leaves, which attract small nutrient rich insects. As soon as the insect lands on what it thinks is honey, it is trapped. The sticky hairs and the leaves envelop it and gradually dissolve it with a digestive juice, absorbing and extracting nitrogen which it needs to grow. It is one of only a few insectivorous plants in Ireland. You can see a video clip of sundew trapping insects at bbc.co.uk/nature ‘Hungry Plants - Bill Oddie Goes Wild’ or ’Botanical Treasures British Isles-A Natural History’.

Cotton grass The fluffy white seed heads and the reddish grass like leaves of cotton grass mark the wet peaty ground of blanket bog. Its tough leaves do not rot away in the wet acid bog conditions and so build up to form peat.

Bog moss Sphagnum mosses are typical of waterlogged soil conditions in springs, flushes and bog pools. Their colourful leaves hold large amounts of water, which they use to make acid. This in turn prevents the decay of dead vegetation and so accumulates as peat to help develop bogs.

Bell heather The purple flowers of bell heather are typical of the dry granite soils of the Mournes and give the landscape its familiar colour in the summer. Like its close cousins, ling heather and cross leaved heath, its flowers are important to bees which produce a dark rich heather honey.

Biodiversity Fact File 2

Keeled skimmer The blue adult male patrols its territory from early June to late August looking for the brown females. It breeds in shallow flushes and pools on sheltered sunny slopes below 300m, where its predatory larvae grow for two years.

Wheatear Wheatears visit the Mournes in summer to breed and migrate to central Africa for winter. They nest in rocky crevices in cliffs and scree. The wheatear is a small, mainly ground-dwelling, bird. It hops or runs on the ground. It is blue- grey above with black wings and white below with an orange flush to the breast. It has a black cheek. In flight it shows a white rump and a black 'T' shape on its tail. They eat insects and larvae.

Peregrine Falcon The fastest animal in the world, the peregrine falcon can reach an incredible 250 km per hour / 155mph when chasing prey. (The speed limit on a motorway is 113 km per hour / 70mph.) Female peregrine falcons can be up to 20% larger than males. The peregrine falcon mainly eats other birds and usually catches them mid-air. An incredibly fast and agile bird, the peregrine falcon attacks prey in a spectacular dive, or chases it to exhaust it. Peregrine falcons nest on mountain cliff ledges and sometimes in abandoned stone quarries. Their presence is often advertised by their harsh warning cry as they soar through the air on their pointed streamlined wings. In winter they descend from the mountains in search of food and hunt over the coastal mud flats.

Ring Ouzel Slightly smaller and slimmer than a blackbird, male ring ouzels are particularly distinctive with their black plumage, a pale wing panel and striking white breast band. The ring ouzel lives mainly in the uplands, where it breeds in steep sided valleys, crags and gullies. Nests can be found on, or close to, the ground in heather, in a crevice, or occasionally in a tree. The young are fed a diet consisting mainly of earthworms and beetles. Ring ouzels arrive in March and April and leave again in Septem- ber. They eat insects and berries

Raven The haunting calls of this magnificent glossy black bird were once only heard in the mountains, where this largest member of the crow family nested on isolated rock ledges at the end of winter. It mainly eats carrion (dead animals) and so it benefited when the mountains were heavily grazed by sheep. It has now spread out into lowland areas where it nests in trees. It has an acrobatic flight pattern and a deep call.

The Irish Hare The Irish hare is a medium sized plant eater (herbivore), measuring up to 50cm long and weighing about 4-5kg. It has a reddish-brown coat, long ears with black tips and powerful back legs. They feed mostly on grasses, but also eat heather, bilberries and even seaweed in coastal areas. They feed mostly at night, resting during the day in scraped out hollows called 'forms'. The Irish Hare is larger than a rabbit with black tips on its ears. Its coat has a red tinge to it in the summer and is less shaggy than Mountain Hares.

Common Lizard The common lizard is Irelands’ only reptile. About 10 to 15cm long, usually brownish-grey in colour, often with rows of darker markings down the back and down the sides. Common lizards like heathland, moorland, tussocky grassland and woodland edges - anywhere they can find invertebrates to eat and a sunny patch in which to sunbathe. They hibernate, usually from October to April. If attacked by a predator, a lizard will often run away, leaving its 35 wriggling tail behind!

Red Grouse. The population of red grouse has declined in the Mournes, perhaps linked to the loss of heather moorland. Birds breed in the uplands and are resident all year round travelling very little in their lives. A plump, round game bird about the same size and shape as a partridge. Red Grouse is entirely rich gingery-brown in colour, with a black tail and red eyebrows. They feed on heather leaves, seeds, berries and insects. The best place to see it is on heather in the Mournes when it suddenly rockets up from the heather when disturbed to fly off with a fast whirring wing beats.

Skylark. A streaky brown bird with a small crest and white sided tail. The wings also have a white rear edge visible in flight. It likes open countryside like lowland farmland and upland heath. Heather burning and earlier silage cutting have reduced its numbers. The Skylark is easily identified as it flies straight up high into the sky and hovers there for quite some time as it sings its beautiful melodic song.

Biodiversity Fact File 3

Some priority species whose numbers have declined due to the degradation and loss of upland habitat and have special action plans written by government to help conserve them are:

Red Grouse These birds eat the leaves of heather and conceal their nests amongst it and need heather plants of varying age structure to survive. The heather needs to be specially managed by controlled burning and grazing to achieve this. Loss of upland heath due to overgrazing by sheep and sometimes cattle and unregulated burning has reduced the areas of healthy heather and bilberry which the Red Grouse needs for food and shelter. Breeding birds are then concentrated in smaller areas of suitable habitat which makes them more vulnerable to predators like foxes, as well as disease and disturbance from walkers. Plans to manage areas of upland heath sustainably and to regenerate this habitat will help numbers of Red Grouse to increase again. Irish Hare Irish Hares used to be widespread but their numbers have been in decline in recent years in upland habitats. This is mainly due to direct grazing competition with sheep in upland areas. Once again, habitat management plans should help numbers of this species. Juniper Juniper is a rare conifer in our uplands. Erosion, overgrazing and fires have caused it to decline. The Mourne Heritage Trust has been surveying, monitoring and recording locations of this plant. With special permission from the Northern Ireland Environment Agency, a governmental body, they have been taking cuttings of juniper and propagating it (growing it) in their tree nursery to plant out in upland areas.

Wind strength recording sheet

Write a simple description of where you are standing in the space marked “Where am I?” Hold your wind gauge above your head and see which piece of paper or card moves. Tick the boxes if it moves. Once you have done this, move to another area of the school grounds.

Where am I? Tissue Printer Light Heavy Paper Paper Cardboard Cardboard

Mourne Mountain Wordsearch

a s e f h j c s s s r t o u r i s t l l e r r v s h h k u i h e c v d o m e n e t a t e o e b a c v a m o u n t a i n e e m o u a s l e i v w a t e r o s i o n d t g h d m n o q w r e f h a b i t a t

1. stream 6. mountain 2. weather 7. dome 3. tourist 8. water 4. slieve 9. habitat 5. donard 10. erosion

Mourne Mountain Wordsearch

SOLUTION

a s e f h j c s s s r t o u r i s t l l e r r v s h h k u i h e c v d o m e n e t a t e o e b a c v a m o u n t a i n e e m o u a s l e i v w a t e r o s i o n d t g h d m n o q w r e f h a b i t a t

1. stream 6. mountain 2. weather 7. dome 3. tourist 8. water 4. slieve 9. habitat 5. donard 10. erosion

Mourne Mountain Wordsearch

l a n d f o r m a d s b g e h i k f h f l l s d o r i a n b u q t r w y u b e h s p l a o r d c n r n o m u p l a a i f m a g e t g g q a g d g t h k i t z e e s q w e h r e t y u e i o p p u a s d a s f g h i j k l z x w c v c r o m b b b a n m l l a s d g j l q e e t r y o i i r a d p l a t e s g j l z s c b m w o d g e r y s u o s u l d g i u p l a n d h n h k x v n q e m t i r u u o a d g i k o j l x a m g a m v u e n m w r y i v j t p p p s f h k i o t z v c b b m w e e t r r y i i p s t i f h k e z c b m r w o r r a v e n s n t s u i x r p s f s h c l i m a t e a k e z c b p m o w e i r t t v y u i r o i p t c d o m e s e t t t d e o m g e c s r e d a s t o r i y b i o r d i v e r s i g t r e t s u s o t a i n a b p l e s u s t a d i n e r t n y u s u s t a i n a b l e i o p a s d f

1. LANDFORM 5. PLATES 9. SUMMIT 13.EXPOSED 17.EROSION 21.SPECIES 2. RIDGE 6. FEATURE 10.TOURIST 14.MAGMA 18.BIODIVERSITY 22.RAVEN 3. RANGE 7. SLIEVE 11.CLIMATE 15.DOME 19.UPLAND 23.SUNDEW 4. FOOTHILLS 8. CROM 12.RIVER 16.GRANITE 20.SUSTAINABLE 24.COTTONGRASS

Mourne Mountain Wordsearch

Weather symbols

Sunny Overcast

Cloudy Rain

Storms Snow

Dragonfly Lifecycle

Draw a line from the statements to the correct stage of the lifecycle.

Eggs laid beneath the surface of the water

Nymph climbs up plants and emerges as an adult

Eggs hatch. Nymph spends life underwater.

Dragonfly

Egg Nymph

Wildlife Estate Agents

A habitat is a place where a creature lives. It isn’t just where it shelters but the place that provides it with everything it needs to survive.

Choose a habitat. Pretend you are a wildlife estate agent and you are trying to encourage a creature to live there. Draw and label your habitat below to advertise your habitat to wildlife.

Habitat………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

A great place to live for………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Invasive Species

An invasive species is a is a plant or animal that is not native to an area. It spreads and causes damage to the local environment.

Can you create a new invasive species?

Species name:…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Where did it come from …………………… …………………………………………………………………… Draw your new species here.

How did it get here? ………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………..

What makes it a successful invasive species?……………………………………………………. ………………………………………………………………….. ………………………………………………………………….. ………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………..

What problems is it causing? …………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………….. …………………………………………………………………… ..……………………………………………………………...

How can we stop it spreading? ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Mourne Mountain Treasure Hunt

5 green things

Something prickly

2 seeds

Something hard

Food for a herbivore

Something with lots of cracks

Something that shouldn’t be there

Something that a bird might eat

Something shiny

A sign that an animal may have been there

Something that has been nibbled by an animal or insect

Something beautiful

47 Something sticky

Upland Taboo

What am I?

1. I am the fastest animal in world. P______

2. I eat dead animals. R _ _ _ _

3. I feed mostly at night and live in a form. I ______.

4. I travel from Africa to visit the Mournes in early spring. W ______.

5. I trap insects with my round sticky leaves to get the nutrients I need to

grow. S _ _ _ _ _.

6. I give the Mourne mountain landscape its brilliant purple colour in the

summer. B ______.

7. I have fluffy white seed heads and grow in wet peaty ground.

C ______.

8. If attacked by a predator I will often run away and leave my wriggling tail

behind! C ______.

Food Connections

All living things on earth need energy to grow. Plants and animals get that energy from the sun, but they get it in different ways.

Producers, produce their own food. Can you draw a circle around the producers?

Animals are called consumers. This is because they cannot make their own food, so they need to consume (eat) plants and/or other animals.

Herbivores are animals that only eat plants. Can you name three herbivores? ……………………………………………… ……………………………………………… ………………………….………………….

Carnivores are animals that only eat meat. Name three carnivores below. …………………………………………… ………………………………………….. ……………………………..……………

Omnivores are animals that eat both animals and plants. Can you name one? ……………………………………………

Food Connections

Can you fill in the gaps in this food chain? You can write or draw your answers.

Sun Owl

Can you draw a food chain you might find in the mountains? You should include the sun, a producer, a herbivore and a carnivore.

Food Web Here are a number of different producers and consumers. Can you link them together into a food web?

Mountains

What is a mountain?

Mountains usually have steep sides or ______and long high edges called ______.

The highest point of the mountain is the ______.

Low gentle hills in front of mountains are called ______.

A group or line of mountains is known as a ______.

Range Slopes Summit Ridges Foothills s s

f r

Mountains

What is a mountain?

Mountains usually have steep sides or ______and long high edges called ______.

The highest point of the mountain is the ______.

Low gentle hills in front of mountains are called ______.

A group or line of mountains is known as a ______.

52 Useful contacts Useful Websites

Useful contacts

Mourne Mountains Landscape Partnership Unit 3, Cornmill Quay Annalong Marine Park. Annalong. Co Down . BT34 4QG Tel: 028 4376 7391 Email: [email protected]