Teaching children about nature through environmental workshops

For over a year now, the Ballinderry Rivers Trust has organised environmental workshops in schools to teach children the value of the environment around them.
For the first three months of the year, the Ballinderry Rivers Trust is actively trying to involve children in environmental actions by allowing them to raise trout in their classrooms. 
“We deliver some little trout eggs in their classrooms in January and they have to raise them out into actual fish. Then we go with the class to a local river and release them,” said Jillian, from Ballinderry Rivers Trust.

This year, four schools in County Derry and ten in Tyrone are participating in the project.
The Ballinderry Rivers Trust has a breeding centre where they raise fish such as trout. 
“Each school gets a little fridge, like a wine cooler. Inside it we put a little tank of water and the eggs go in that,” said Jillian.
“Then the children are responsible for making sure that the water is at the right temperature, cleaning the fish tank, and doing all the checks to make sure that if they see a little dead egg it has to be removed before it infects the rest of the fish.”
“It's something so different than what they would never normally do, it’s always a big hit,” said Jillian
Until Easter, the trouts raised in the classroom will be released into local rivers.
Jillian explained that every time, kids love this activity because they can get involved with something that is going to go back into the wild. 
“[Last time], a wee boy was crying because he wanted to keep the fish in this classroom. He was so sad that it was now gone out into the river! He really got invested in the project,” laughed Jillian.
Ballinderry Rivers Trust workshops allow kids to understand the importance of nature around them. 
“Once we're releasing the fish into the river, we always say [to the kids] ‘this is nice, you've looked after them really well, but now it's everyone's responsibility to help them to survive’ and this really stays with them,” said Jillian.
From April, Jillian goes from classroom to classroom to talk about pollution, river features, and ‘how a river changes on its journey’.
Jillian and her team also have other environmental workshops available about the “endangered species that children don't know about that are right here on our doorstep” such as the freshwater pearl mussel or the white-clawed crayfish. 
They are also giving the opportunity to GCSE geography and A-level geography students fieldwork where they have the chance to practise their river skills. 
“We take [the students] out to where they can measure the flow, the depth, and the width and height changes down the river.”
The main aim of the Ballinderry Rivers Trust is ‘to improve water quality, to inform that everyone is responsible for looking after the river and looking after the water’, said Jillian Johnston, the Education and Outreach Officer for the Ballinderry Rivers Trust.
The environmental workshop for the primary schools is free of charge when the school is within the catchment area of the Ballinderry Rivers Trust. If a school is outside of the catchment area Jillian said there is a charge of £50 for the hour-long workshop.