Friends of Oxford Botanic Garden and Harcourt Arboretum

Again the Garden is most grateful to the Taylors of Rycote for the loan of their cattle for aftermath grazing. 

The second project involved a base-line survey of the flora in Palmer’s Leys and a comparison with the present flora in Pylon Meadow.  Not surprisingly the set-aside arable land in Palmer’s Leys is depauperate especially at the rank of family with the Poaceae and Asteraceae accounting for 73% of the species.  This compares strikingly with the diversity found in Pylon Meadow in 2002 where grazing, albeit over-grazing, had been a regular feature for at least two decades.  Both of these projects are not just academic exercises but valuable pieces of research that will inform future decisions on the management of these areas.

Students on the Environmental Conservation course at the Department of Continuing Education visited the Garden to compare our educational activities with those at the Museum of Natural History and Forest Schools.

In November and December over 300 students on the PGCE course at Oxford Brookes University attended sessions at the Garden and Arboretum as part of their Community Weeks.

School Education Programmes: Secondary School Activities

At the beginning of this quarter the Secondary Schools Education Officer (Sarah Lloyd) completed the Hard Rain programme that examined the potential effects of the predicted changes in climate over the next 50-100 years.  Pupils attending these sessions reacted very positively to the challenges.

Sarah completed another piece of work, this time the drama project carried out with Wood Green School.  This involved pupils creating a performing a play that illustrated the role of plants in medicine and the need to conserve these plants.  The school is very keen to continue this project next year.
                                              
Other programmes offered to secondary schools this quarter have included High Science at the Arboretum and a Sixth Form Study Day on the theme of Molecules, Cells and Systems.  Sarah has started an outreach programme to attract those schools not yet using the resources that the Garden can offer.

School Education Programmes: Primary School Activities
In the run-up to Christmas the traditional Christmas Tree in the Conservatory was the venue for the traditional Christmas Cake Programme.  This led to the traditional deja-vu overload for the Primary Schools Education Officer.  This year a Christmas Trail was laid out for the general public since this was the first winter of charging for admission at weekends.

Before and after Christmas creative art programmes were run at the Garden with Autumnal Art before and Hot Art after, in addition to the tried and tested programmes such as the Rainforest Experience that is entering its 20th year.  One of the Director’s current tutees attended one of the earliest incarnations of this programme when he was attending Christ Church Cathedral School.  In addition to these well established programmes new ideas are regularly tested.  This term the Five Senses experience has been introduced for pupils attending Special Schools.

The Garden’s Primary Education Officer (Emma Williams) has completed the first two sessions in the Creative Partnership project with the School of St Philip and St James.  The project is entitled Creativity Cubed, C3, and part of the work will involve the children discovering what a botanic garden does.

The beginning the Autumn Term saw the start of the My … project and the first group to take part was 20 Year 10 pupils from Gillotts in Henley.  During 2008 Kate Castleden will be working with another two schools.  All of the sculptures produced will be exhibited at Modern Art Oxford in September.

Before Christmas the Arboretum Education Officer offered sessions for Foundation Stage, Key Stage 1 and 2 entitled Explore the World, Amazing Autumn! and Winter Traditions.  In addition Kate ran her ever popular art session inspired by the work of Andy Goldsworthy.

The Arboretum Outreach Programme is fully booked for the Hilary Term.  This year National Science and Engineering Week is in March and for the first time Kate is tailoring the outreach sessions during this Week to have an experimental bias.

Public Education Programmes

The 2007-08 Public Education Programme is now almost completed and attendance has shown a clear demand and need for all the various programmes that the Garden offers.  The Science for Gardeners series was very well attended and while it might be wrong to single out any of the lecturers for praise it was most gratifying to welcome the new Sibthorpian Professor to the series.  He delivered a first rate presentation based on his book Seed to Seed.

The Director delivered the adult versions of his 2nd Year Plant Conservation lectures and 1st year Plant Biology Lectures before and after Christmas respectively.  Although this involved some extra work it did mean that he updated his undergraduate lectures well before he was due to give them to the students, instead of the traditional midnight oil burning lecture-crisis.

At the Arboretum the hazel hurdle-making course was well attended and the Winter Lecture series has begun for the twelfth season and it continues to draw hundreds of attendees due to the high standard of lecturers that the Curator continues to discover for each year.

Family and Community Outreach Programmes
Faces of the Forest: tree spirits of the Arboretum, the Big Draw event in the Autumn half term, was the best attended family event to date with over 300 people participating in the four hour event.  The opportunity to create clay faces appealed to visitors of all ages and the results were very impressive.  The event was featured in the most recent Annual Report of the University.

Planning for the Great Growing Picnic Season at the Garden though the “summer” of 2008 is well advanced.  Part of this season is the Magic Hour.  This will be held over three nights in September and will involve art installations that should be viewed after the sun has gone down.  The last time this type of event was held the response from the public was extraordinary.

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