The River Dee Trust is fundraising to reignite its education programme and is seeking support from individuals and local business to help raise money. The previous programme, IntroDee was a major success and was very popular with hundreds of primary school pupils and teachers. Funding for this work has ended and there is a need to redouble our efforts so that we can continue to develop our relationship with youngsters on the catchment. If you would like to contribute to this work, please contact the River Office on 013398 80411 or info@riverdee.org
This project is to develop and deliver an education package to school groups to provide an understanding of their local rivers and natural environment. Our aim is to increase awareness, enthusiasm for and understanding of our rivers and riparian areas in Deeside and Aberdeen City, achieved by:
1. Encouraging and educating young people to be inspired by the natural environment, through teaching about the river, its management and nature conservation, with a focus on STEM subjects.
2. Increasing the recreational use of the river through offering opportunities to go fishing and promoting better use of the river for outdoor recreation.
Our target is to enable 30 school groups and five youth groups per year to visit the river and undertake outdoor learning in a safe and fun manner. Each group would have three visits, including a visit to their classroom, a trip to the river bank and a trip to a fishery to try fishing and invertebrate sampling.
We also aim to make teachers familiar with our education package so that they can continue the learning outside of our visits. We will work with teachers to focus the visits on any specific areas of interest.
Funding & time frame
This project is initially for 2 years, but the aim is to make the project self-sustaining through raising of funds as part of the role.
The full cost to deliver one visit is £360, or £14 per child. In year 1, a focus is to develop the package and deliver 60 visits, based on providing 3 visits to each of 20 groups. In future years, the target would be 90 visits to 30 groups.
| Yr 1 | Future Years | |
| Development of Education Package | £10,000 | £1,000 |
| Delivery of visits (inc. admin) | £21,600 | £32,400 |
| Consumables | £1,500 | £1,000 |
| Total | £33,100 | £34,400 |
So far, we have raised £18,000.
Predicted outcomes/measurable indicators Project success will be measured in terms of: • Number of school groups/pupils visited and taken out of the classroom • Number of children introduced to fishing • Feedback forms to teachers/group leaders • Number of website visitors to project information.
Recognition Any contribution will be recognised on our website and in our annual review, and through any printed/presentational material prepared for schools or other groups.
If you would like to contribute to this work, please contact the River Office on 013398 80411 or info@riverdee.org