March so far

The start of March has brought many visiting groups to the centre. Recently Presdales School, Sir Thomas Wharton School and Robert Pattinson College have all brought A Level geographers.  Norton Knatchbull School and Fakenham College brought joint groups for A Level Environmental Science and Geography, travelling from Kent and Norfolk respectively.

At the centre we have freshwater display tanks in which we have had many species including trout, crayfish, mussels and other freshwater invertebrates.  Our two adult White Clawed Crayfish, Reggie and Claudia, went on an outing to Giggleswick School, as part of a careers talk given by local firm PBA Applied Ecology to inspire young people to look at a future in the environmental sector.  There is still so much that is not yet understood about our world - for instance, why is Reggie a startling blue colour?

As part of the second recruitment programme by the FSC to find new trainee tutors for all centres, we would like to welcome Cian Gill to the team as a member of the education department at Malham Tarn. Cian will be training and working at Malham Tarn over the next few months until a permanent position comes up at another FSC centre.

The Spring Newsletter is complete and all schools on our database will be receiving it over the next few weeks.

Summary of 2010 by Adrian Pickles (Head of Centre)

This is my tenth year as Head of Malham Tarn Field Centre and whilst I am getting the hang of things, there is always something new to learn and someone else to learn from. 2010 began and ended with snow and ice affecting everything that we did. Living and working on Malham Moor presents a number of challenges when the weather is cold and I should say thank you to the many people who helped us out particularly in the first three months of the year. The Tarn froze for 80 days in what was probably the coldest winter since 1982. Winter was followed by a cold and dry spring with less than 12 cm of rain between April and June. The moor stopped looking like Siberia in March and started to look like the Sahara in May- the grass didn’t seem to start growing until June; full details will, as usual be available in the 2011 Wildlife and Weather Report.