School Visits

Educational Sessions for Kids 

Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust are working in partnership with The Vitacress Conservation Trust to deliver free educational sessions at the Abbotts Ann Watercress Farm. This site has a special area set up adjacent to the chalk stream, the Pill Hill Brook, in which we are able to run school and group visits. Activities include river dipping, watercress planting and comparisons of different habitats. The visits can be tailored to the group’s needs with close links to the National Curriculum. The children are given the opportunity to try the fresh watercress and to learn about how the watercress is grown.

Unfortunately due to Covid we were not able to host any visits over the last couple of years, but hope to resume these in 2023. We have however produced a number of digital resources available for free to teachers and group leaders. We have recorded PowerPoints on topics such as the wildlife found in chalk rivers. We are also able to tailor make PowerPoints to cover topics required by schools. For more information, please contact us as above.

Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust also coordinate a landscape partnership project called The Watercress and Winterbournes Project. This is a community based project focusing on the Rivers Test and Itchen and their seven headwaters. You can find out more about this project here.

See our letters below from children who have enjoyed their day out!

School thank you letter
School thank you letter

Our Other Activities…

The Wonderful World of Watercress

Educational Resources

From The Wonderful World of Watercress to Chalk Rivers and Their Wildlife, download our booklets and videos to help children learn about the importance of protecting wildlife and looking after our rivers.

Riverfly Monitoring Initiative

Projects

From river monitoring to supporting wildlife populations, we hold many ongoing projects that involve local schools and communities.